Britons and Germans 'rudest tourists'

Alan Pollock wrote:
Miguel Cruz wrote:
Alan Pollock wrote:
I don't see going after terrorists as escalating anything. They're
terrorists, and they're the ones doing the escalating.

Everyone who uses more violence than they did last time is escalating.

Then the term 'escalation' is meaningless. Give it some value and we'll talk.

Well, no, that's what it means. It is a counter-productive thing and
everyone who does it is contributing to the animosity that fuels the next
round of violence from the other side.

Going after groups that continually target and kill innocent civilians is
a good thing. The old tired phrase 'cycle of violence' tends to validate
the idea that the Israelis and the terrorists are somehow morally equal.

This situation is not going to be solved through assignations of moral
quality. It's going to be solved one day when there exist some leaders that
are strong and pragmatic to throw that sort of talk out the window and come
up with a solution based on the needs of the two communities in that space.

They're only assigned because some here don't seem to understand the
difference between targeting civilians and going after those who do.

Clearly there is a moral difference. I will say this much with you:
Attacking civilians to achieve political ends is purely evil. Fighting back
to try to stop it is not in and of itself evil. However, if after many years
time has shown that the only effect is a lot of corpses, then continuing
that course starts to become less and less defensible, at least to me.

But none of this really matters in terms of finding a solution. You are not
going to solve anything by trying to convince anyone that they are evil. So
it's a waste of time.

As for solutions based on the needs of both communities who could disagree
with that? Unless the need of one community is the complete annihilation
of the other.

Definitely that is not anyone's need. Really nobody's need has anything to
do with the other party.

For instance, I don't "need" my neighbor to turn down his radio, I need to
not be disturbed by the sound. Once we realize that, then we are open to a
whole bunch of alternate solutions. Maybe we can split the cost of
soundproofing. Maybe he can buy headphones. Maybe he can move his speakers
or put them on top of something padded that reduces the transmission of
vibrations.

Likewise in the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Only a sick fringe of each
side believes that the other needs to be pushed into the sea. Most people on
both sides just want security and economic stability and cultural
independence.

What is logical about this? It doesn't work. It has never worked in any
other similar situation, except very temporarily. There is no reason to
think it would work here. After many years it is demonstrably a failure and
there is no evidence of a positive trend.

How do you know there wouldn't be ten times more acts of terrorism if it was
all made more easy for them? If Israel did nothing, would there be less
terrorism? Do the terrorists say there would be less? Don't they say they
want to wipe Israel off the map?

Again, history tells us that things do not work this way.

Much of the money (though very little of the grunt-level personnel) comes
from outside, but the terrorists get significant support from Abdul Sixpack
in the occupied territories. He is willing to send a few bucks their way,
and maybe even to strap on an explosive belt, if he has become sufficiently
outraged with what he sees around him. But otherwise, given the choice, he
would rather have a happy and productive life.

Sure there is a core of radicalized people who have become sick with rage or
just pure sociopathy who would take advantage of newfound freedom to hurt
the Israelis. But they will burn themselves out eventually - without the
outrage, support will die off. Suicide bombers will stop volunteering.
Non-suicide attackers will stop finding it worth the risk, given the
increasing abstraction of the issue. And outside entities that funnel in
money won't have the shocking footage to point to when they're passing
around the hat.

Palestinians are going to have to change their own society themselves.

The current setup rewards violence by Palestinians with moral superiority.
The Israelis have cast themselves as the oppressors, and play the part with
glee, and so any strike against them is a blow for justice in the eyes of
those who feel themselves downtrodden by a superior power. As long as this
persists, there will be no change.

Bu there is moral superiority when you compare a group that kills innocent
civilians on purpose and those who try to eliminate those who do. The 'glee'
part is frivolous, Miguel, and it's irrelevant.

Well, I really think it has come to the point where large parts of the
Israeli military have dehumanized Palestinians in their minds. They may make
some calculations based on public relations factors but I don't see these
people valuing life on the other side of the barbed wire fence the same way
they value it on theirs. None which is to say anything about the valuations
made by their opponents.

Part of this is of course what's necessary in order to function as a soldier
when you may sometimes have orders to kill. But this has dragged on long
enough that the dehumanization has become endemic. I have had very
disturbing conversations with recent members of the Israeli army in which
they looked me in the eye and equated Palestinians, as a class, with
animals. This is not the path to reconciliation.

Coddling Palestinian terrorists doesn't help, especially when
Palestinian society struggles with difficult but not impossible social
and political changes. The best help stable first-world nations can give
is education in democracy, rights and laws, backed-up by
strictly-controlled gifts of money.

Those things would be great, however every time some developed-world money
goes into a school or road or airport it gets blown up by the Israeli army.

Read my paragraph again.

You mean, they should come over from Dartmouth and stand on street corners
pontificating about the glories of liberal democratic society? I don't think
that's going to get very far. Without schools and other tangible benefits to
go along with the message, it's going to be too abstract for anyone to take
seriously. And if those schools keep getting knocked down, it's just going
to reinforce the message of helplessness and outrage that's at the root of
the breadth of Palestinian support for pointless destructive activities.

miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos and tales from around the world: http://travel.u.nu
Site remodeled 10-Sept-2003: Hundreds of new photos, easier navigation.

The Reid wrote:
Following up to Alan Pollock

Which implicitly means accepting terrorism first?

I don't see going after terrorists as escalating anything. They're terrorists,
and they're the ones doing the escalating.

The Palestinians see it the other way round. It makes no
difference saying that they are terrorists, a strategy has to see
the issues from the mindset of the enemy too.

A strategy yes, but one usually stops short of doing what the opponent wants
you to do, unless it makes sense, which in this case it doesn't. Not until the
Palestinians show some good faith instead of hysteria.


Going after groups that continually
target and kill innocent civilians is a good thing.

only if the outcome is less violence, currently it produces more
violence.

And the alternative is what? Doing nothing? Allowing busloads of civilians to
get continually blown-up? Make the exercise easier for the terrorists?


The old tired phrase
'cycle of violence' tends to validate the idea that the Israelis and the
terrorists are somehow morally equal.

It might be tired but it *is* a cycle of violence.


On one level yes, but it's a vague level that doesn't distinguish much.


Moral equality is irrelevant, your fighting a war, you need
strategy that will get the desired results. Where is the Isreali
endgame?

The endgame is security. The endgame is that Palestinians will at some point
grow tired of relegating themselves to the backwaters of the civilized world.
They'll eventually understand that they can't achieve the impossible by doing
the unthinkable.

A free trade zone in that general area with Israel could be an amazing success
story. People in that part of the world are quick-witted and have been trading
for millennia. It's a natural.

But no, hatred is so much more seductive, isn't it? Especially when egged-on
by so many. Heroic hyperbole at its best, but totally unrealistic and terribly
counter-productive. How can democracy take root in such hysteria? How can good
trading practices flourish? Lots of help will be needed.


But if you mean escalation in the battle for the hearts and minds of the
Palestinian public, then pandering to them might temporarily forestall
violence, sure, for a few microseconds as a strategic posture until the next
time somthing irks them and all of a sudden terrorism again becomes the
'answer'. Meanwhile going after terrorists and making it more difficult for
them is the logical, pragmatic response.

How can it be logical if it does not work?

All evidence points to the contrary. Do nothing and they'll take advantage of
perceived weakness. They aren't called terroristws for their expertise in
needlepoint.


Palestinians are going to have to change their own society themselves.

Or with help.

Yes, with massive help. But in the end they must want to change. That time
isn't here, or they would have already.


We only made progress in NI by fighting terrorism with policing
methods with military backup AND addressing the grievances.
Against a far less ruthless and less widely supported enemy with
a weaker grievance (although backed with some US money from
noraid) the IRA were very effective in the mainland bombing
campaign.

Grievances of the population. Did Israel not offer a large part of what the
Palestinians wanted but were turned down anyway? Your comparisons with NI only
go so far.

Coddling Palestinian terrorists doesn't help

Hitting them with rockets, hinders.

Timing is everything. Right now, with such thriving popular hysteria? Hinders
less than doing nothing.

, especially when Palestinian
society struggles with difficult but not impossible social and political
changes. The best help stable first-world nations can give is education in
democracy, rights and laws, backed-up by strictly-controlled gifts of money.

Agreed, these are the areas where eventually the problems must be
unraveled and addressed, every tank round, bulldozer or rocket
just puts it further out of reach.

I don't agree. As long as each Israeli attack is in retaliation for a
terrorist attack, they're above-board.

Rewarding terrorism is no help at all.

Rewarding terrorism seems to be working in NI. Some of the
terrorists are ministers now.


Let the terrorists stop terrorizing and sure, I can see the day when some
spokesman for Hamas will mellow-out and become an official of the new state.
Change happens. But I think you're mixing things up by comparing Palestinian
Terrorists to the IRA, or Palestinians to Northern Irish Catholics. It's
tempting, but fraught with pitfalls.

At some point rewarding Palestinian peace yes, will be advantageous. Let's
hope that it's close in time. With Arafat at the helm I don't see it. With
groups like Hamas garnering such tremendous popular support, I don't see it.

In the meantime you deal with the terrorists in the manner they deserve. The
Palestinian population comes to its senses and wants to really talk? They'll
talk somehow. Terrorists become an impediment? Palestinians will do something
about them. In the meantime you deal with it. Nex

Miguel Cruz wrote:
Alan Pollock wrote:
Miguel Cruz wrote:
Alan Pollock wrote:
I don't see going after terrorists as escalating anything. They're
terrorists, and they're the ones doing the escalating.

Everyone who uses more violence than they did last time is escalating.

Then the term 'escalation' is meaningless. Give it some value and we'll talk.

Well, no, that's what it means. It is a counter-productive thing and
everyone who does it is contributing to the animosity that fuels the next
round of violence from the other side.


Well there you go saying what you think, giving value to that neutral word
'escalation'. Now we Can talk. To my way of thinking, if terrorists represent
the majority of a population then talks are impossible. If that's not the
case, then escalation only deals punishing terrorists, and doesn't necessarily
impact talks with the legal representatives of the Palestinian population.


Going after groups that continually target and kill innocent civilians is
a good thing. The old tired phrase 'cycle of violence' tends to validate
the idea that the Israelis and the terrorists are somehow morally equal.

This situation is not going to be solved through assignations of moral
quality. It's going to be solved one day when there exist some leaders that
are strong and pragmatic to throw that sort of talk out the window and come
up with a solution based on the needs of the two communities in that space.

They're only assigned because some here don't seem to understand the
difference between targeting civilians and going after those who do.

Clearly there is a moral difference. I will say this much with you:
Attacking civilians to achieve political ends is purely evil. Fighting back
to try to stop it is not in and of itself evil. However, if after many years
time has shown that the only effect is a lot of corpses, then continuing
that course starts to become less and less defensible, at least to me.

Okay, I get your train of thought. IMO it's up to the Palestinian people and
their reps to stop the terrorists from acting, and not the retaliating nation
that has its civilians purposely killed.


But none of this really matters in terms of finding a solution. You are not
going to solve anything by trying to convince anyone that they are evil. So
it's a waste of time.

The terrorists don't need convincing, they need something stronger. It's the
Palestinian _populace_ that needs to understand what's in their best interest.
It's the populace that needs to see how mass hysteria prevents them from
living freely, getting educated, gaining wealth, and leading happy lives.


As for solutions based on the needs of both communities who could disagree
with that? Unless the need of one community is the complete annihilation
of the other.

Definitely that is not anyone's need. Really nobody's need has anything to
do with the other party.

For instance, I don't "need" my neighbor to turn down his radio, I need to
not be disturbed by the sound. Once we realize that, then we are open to a
whole bunch of alternate solutions. Maybe we can split the cost of
soundproofing. Maybe he can buy headphones. Maybe he can move his speakers
or put them on top of something padded that reduces the transmission of
vibrations.

After the terrorists are hounded from the area by Palestinians, or quietly
become middle-class and merge into the population to deal with their Own lives
for a change yes, the sky's the limit. There isn't much law there now. You
don't coddle those whose aim it is to keep hysteria alive.

Likewise in the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Only a sick fringe of each
side believes that the other needs to be pushed into the sea. Most people on
both sides just want security and economic stability and cultural
independence.

You fail to mention the hysterical hatred on the Palestinian side that
supports - no, feeds - the terrorists both in the physical sense and in the
emotional. It prevents the acceptance of good deals. At this point, it
practically ensures that if a deal is struck, nothing at all will again ignite
the hysteria, the public killings of their own, the terror of Palestinians by
Palestinians. It's sad, and wrong to equate this with the situation in Israel.
I know you didn't, but many do in an attempt to be 'fair.'

What is logical about this? It doesn't work. It has never worked in any
other similar situation, except very temporarily. There is no reason to
think it would work here. After many years it is demonstrably a failure and
there is no evidence of a positive trend.

How do you know there wouldn't be ten times more acts of terrorism if it was
all made more easy for them? If Israel did nothing, would there be less
terrorism? Do the terrorists say there would be less? Don't they say they
want to wipe Israel off the map?


Much of the money (though very little of the grunt-level personnel) comes
from outside, but the terrorists get significant support from Abdul Sixpack
in the occupied territories. He is willing to send a few bucks their way,
and maybe even to strap on an explosive belt, if he has become sufficiently
outraged with what he sees around him. But otherwise, given the choice, he
would rather have a happy and productive life.

Given the choice.

Sure there is a core of radicalized people who have become sick with rage or
just pure sociopathy who would take advantage of newfound freedom to hurt
the Israelis. But they will burn themselves out eventually - without the
outrage, support will die off. Suicide bombers will stop volunteering.
Non-suicide attackers will stop finding it worth the risk, given the
increasing abstraction of the issue. And outside entities that funnel in
money won't have the shocking footage to point to when they're passing
around the hat.

That'd be a happy day. But it's not going to happen because Israel shows
weakness, or lies down belly-up. It'll happen because Palestinian
just-plain-folks will get fed-up with the tyranny these groups exert over them
and their futures. Meanwhile those who want to support Palestinian terrorism
will always do so, not because of any 'shocking footage', but for their own
reasons.

Palestinians are going to have to change their own society themselves.

The current setup rewards violence by Palestinians with moral superiority.
The Israelis have cast themselves as the oppressors, and play the part with
glee, and so any strike against them is a blow for justice in the eyes of
those who feel themselves downtrodden by a superior power. As long as this
persists, there will be no change.

Bu there is moral superiority when you compare a group that kills innocent
civilians on purpose and those who try to eliminate those who do. The 'glee'
part is frivolous, Miguel, and it's irrelevant.

Well, I really think it has come to the point where large parts of the
Israeli military have dehumanized Palestinians in their minds. They may make
some calculations based on public relations factors but I don't see these
people valuing life on the other side of the barbed wire fence the same way
they value it on theirs. None which is to say anything about the valuations
made by their opponents.


In their minds? Isn't this what some Palestinians would have you believe? That
the Israelis are inhuman, they've dehumanized their opponents and so on. This
kind of 'reasoning' (actually 'emoting' would be a better word) allows many
Palestinians and even some westerners to call the Israelis Nazis and feel good
about it.


Part of this is of course what's necessary in order to function as a soldier
when you may sometimes have orders to kill. But this has dragged on long
enough that the dehumanization has become endemic. I have had very
disturbing conversations with recent members of the Israeli army in which
they looked me in the eye and equated Palestinians, as a class, with
animals. This is not the path to reconciliation.

Anecdotal. For what it's worth, it's worth nothing. I value your experience,
but it's not representative.

(Moreover, other factors pertain: I can think of two 'animalizing' influences
off the top of my head: mass hysteria, and terrorism - and both are temporary)


Coddling Palestinian terrorists doesn't help, especially when
Palestinian society struggles with difficult but not impossible social
and political changes. The best help stable first-world nations can give
is education in democracy, rights and laws, backed-up by
strictly-controlled gifts of money.

Those things would be great, however every time some developed-world money
goes into a school or road or airport it gets blown up by the Israeli army.

Read my paragraph again.

You mean, they should come over from Dartmouth and stand on street corners
pontificating about the glories of liberal democratic society? I don't think
that's going to get very far. Without schools and other tangible benefits to
go along with the message, it's going to be too abstract for anyone to take
seriously. And if those schools keep getting knocked down, it's just going
to reinforce the message of helplessness and outrage that's at the root of
the breadth of Palestinian support for pointless destructive activities.

Which is why it must change from within. No country on earth can change what's
in Palestinian hearts; only they can get fed-up with their terrorist
'representatives.'

I don't think one can really link the destruction of buildings harboring
terrorist activities with a fear that all new buildings will be demolished.
That would mean that very nearly all sizeable Palestinian buildings were
engaged in directly supporting terrorist acts. Nex

Alan Pollock wrote in message ...
Miguel Cruz wrote:
Alan Pollock wrote:
Miguel Cruz wrote:
Alan Pollock wrote:
I don't see going after terrorists as escalating anything. They're
terrorists, and they're the ones doing the escalating.

Everyone who uses more violence than they did last time is escalating.

Then the term 'escalation' is meaningless. Give it some value and we'll talk.

Well, no, that's what it means. It is a counter-productive thing and
everyone who does it is contributing to the animosity that fuels the next
round of violence from the other side.


Well there you go saying what you think, giving value to that neutral word
'escalation'. Now we Can talk. To my way of thinking, if terrorists represent
the majority of a population then talks are impossible. If that's not the
case, then escalation only deals punishing terrorists, and doesn't necessarily
impact talks with the legal representatives of the Palestinian population.

You need to tell us what you meqn by the word "terrorist". From the
context of your contributions it just seems to mean "person I don't
like". By most standards Arafat is just as much the legal
representative of the Palestinian people as George Bush is of the US
people.


Going after groups that continually target and kill innocent civilians is
a good thing. The old tired phrase 'cycle of violence' tends to validate
the idea that the Israelis and the terrorists are somehow morally equal.

This situation is not going to be solved through assignations of moral
quality. It's going to be solved one day when there exist some leaders that
are strong and pragmatic to throw that sort of talk out the window and come
up with a solution based on the needs of the two communities in that space.

They're only assigned because some here don't seem to understand the
difference between targeting civilians and going after those who do.

Clearly there is a moral difference. I will say this much with you:
Attacking civilians to achieve political ends is purely evil. Fighting back
to try to stop it is not in and of itself evil. However, if after many years
time has shown that the only effect is a lot of corpses, then continuing
that course starts to become less and less defensible, at least to me.

Okay, I get your train of thought. IMO it's up to the Palestinian people and
their reps to stop the terrorists from acting, and not the retaliating nation
that has its civilians purposely killed.

In Palestinain eyes it is they who are retaliating, against an
occupying power. It is not in their power to resist in the fashion of
a conventional army in the field, and hence they fight a guerilla
campaign much as all resistance occurs - hitting whatever targets they
can, be they military, quasi-military ("settlements" or civilian.
Naturally killings of innocents are to be deplored, but it is not
evident that these are the exclusive preserve of Palestinians.

But none of this really matters in terms of finding a solution. You are not
going to solve anything by trying to convince anyone that they are evil. So
it's a waste of time.

The terrorists don't need convincing, they need something stronger. It's the
Palestinian _populace_ that needs to understand what's in their best interest.
It's the populace that needs to see how mass hysteria prevents them from
living freely, getting educated, gaining wealth, and leading happy lives.

Well that's not at all evident. It seems to me that what is preventing
the Palestinian people from leading happy lives is the brutal military
occupation of their land, which continues relentlessly, day after day
more as land is taken for settlements, roads, fences etc. This is not
a recent phenomenon, it has happened ceaselessly for decades, whether
the Palestinians subscribed to peace processess or not. In fact the
current situation can be partly attributed to the failure of Israel to
meet its commitments at Oslo and continue building on stolen land. It
is the perception of the Palestinians that negotiation and peaceful
means have led them nowhere that leads to desperation and violence.
They seem to have no choice that will bring peace, short of upping
sticks and emigrating. That seems to be the only solution that is
acceptable to Israel, and by extension the US.

As for solutions based on the needs of both communities who could disagree
with that? Unless the need of one community is the complete annihilation
of the other.

Definitely that is not anyone's need. Really nobody's need has anything to
do with the other party.

For instance, I don't "need" my neighbor to turn down his radio, I need to
not be disturbed by the sound. Once we realize that, then we are open to a
whole bunch of alternate solutions. Maybe we can split the cost of
soundproofing. Maybe he can buy headphones. Maybe he can move his speakers
or put them on top of something padded that reduces the transmission of
vibrations.

After the terrorists are hounded from the area by Palestinians, or quietly
become middle-class and merge into the population to deal with their Own lives
for a change yes, the sky's the limit. There isn't much law there now. You
don't coddle those whose aim it is to keep hysteria alive.

The hysteria is kept alive by the Israelis, as it serves their purpose
to provide a pretext for stealing land. Unfortunately they also steal
land with lesser pretext, so the way to peace for the Palestinians is
not clear.

Likewise in the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Only a sick fringe of each
side believes that the other needs to be pushed into the sea. Most people on
both sides just want security and economic stability and cultural
independence.

You fail to mention the hysterical hatred on the Palestinian side that
supports - no, feeds - the terrorists both in the physical sense and in the
emotional. It prevents the acceptance of good deals.

There have been none offered, so you are merely speculating.

At this point, it
practically ensures that if a deal is struck, nothing at all will again ignite
the hysteria, the public killings of their own, the terror of Palestinians by
Palestinians. It's sad, and wrong to equate this with the situation in Israel.
I know you didn't, but many do in an attempt to be 'fair.'

What is logical about this? It doesn't work. It has never worked in any
other similar situation, except very temporarily. There is no reason to
think it would work here. After many years it is demonstrably a failure and
there is no evidence of a positive trend.

How do you know there wouldn't be ten times more acts of terrorism if it was
all made more easy for them? If Israel did nothing, would there be less
terrorism? Do the terrorists say there would be less? Don't they say they
want to wipe Israel off the map?


Much of the money (though very little of the grunt-level personnel) comes
from outside, but the terrorists get significant support from Abdul Sixpack
in the occupied territories. He is willing to send a few bucks their way,
and maybe even to strap on an explosive belt, if he has become sufficiently
outraged with what he sees around him. But otherwise, given the choice, he
would rather have a happy and productive life.

Given the choice.

Sure there is a core of radicalized people who have become sick with rage or
just pure sociopathy who would take advantage of newfound freedom to hurt
the Israelis. But they will burn themselves out eventually - without the
outrage, support will die off. Suicide bombers will stop volunteering.
Non-suicide attackers will stop finding it worth the risk, given the
increasing abstraction of the issue. And outside entities that funnel in
money won't have the shocking footage to point to when they're passing
around the hat.

That'd be a happy day. But it's not going to happen because Israel shows
weakness, or lies down belly-up. It'll happen because Palestinian
just-plain-folks will get fed-up with the tyranny these groups exert over them
and their futures. Meanwhile those who want to support Palestinian terrorism
will always do so, not because of any 'shocking footage', but for their own
reasons.

You have no evidence to show that the life of Palestinians in the long
run would improve if their intifada ended. On the contrary - it was
the lack of change fo rthe better during the years following Oslo that
led to the desperation that now leads to violence.

Palestinians are going to have to change their own society themselves.

The current setup rewards violence by Palestinians with moral superiority.
The Israelis have cast themselves as the oppressors, and play the part with
glee, and so any strike against them is a blow for justice in the eyes of
those who feel themselves downtrodden by a superior power. As long as this
persists, there will be no change.

Bu there is moral superiority when you compare a group that kills innocent
civilians on purpose and those who try to eliminate those who do. The 'glee'
part is frivolous, Miguel, and it's irrelevant.

Well, I really think it has come to the point where large parts of the
Israeli military have dehumanized Palestinians in their minds. They may make
some calculations based on public relations factors but I don't see these
people valuing life on the other side of the barbed wire fence the same way
they value it on theirs. None which is to say anything about the valuations
made by their opponents.


In their minds? Isn't this what some Palestinians would have you believe? That
the Israelis are inhuman, they've dehumanized their opponents and so on. This
kind of 'reasoning' (actually 'emoting' would be a better word) allows many
Palestinians and even some westerners to call the Israelis Nazis and feel good
about it.

No - what leads people to equate Israelis with Nazis is the emergence
of a brutal racist state. The degree may differ, but the elements are
the same.

Part of this is of course what's necessary in order to function as a soldier
when you may sometimes have orders to kill. But this has dragged on long
enough that the dehumanization has become endemic. I have had very
disturbing conversations with recent members of the Israeli army in which
they looked me in the eye and equated Palestinians, as a class, with
animals. This is not the path to reconciliation.

Anecdotal. For what it's worth, it's worth nothing. I value your experience,
but it's not representative.

Evidence?

(Moreover, other factors pertain: I can think of two 'animalizing' influences
off the top of my head: mass hysteria, and terrorism - and both are temporary)

Meaning what?

Coddling Palestinian terrorists doesn't help, especially when
Palestinian society struggles with difficult but not impossible social
and political changes. The best help stable first-world nations can give
is education in democracy, rights and laws, backed-up by
strictly-controlled gifts of money.

Those things would be great, however every time some developed-world money
goes into a school or road or airport it gets blown up by the Israeli army.

Read my paragraph again.

You mean, they should come over from Dartmouth and stand on street corners
pontificating about the glories of liberal democratic society? I don't think
that's going to get very far. Without schools and other tangible benefits to
go along with the message, it's going to be too abstract for anyone to take
seriously. And if those schools keep getting knocked down, it's just going
to reinforce the message of helplessness and outrage that's at the root of
the breadth of Palestinian support for pointless destructive activities.

Which is why it must change from within. No country on earth can change what's
in Palestinian hearts; only they can get fed-up with their terrorist
'representatives.'

I don't think one can really link the destruction of buildings harboring
terrorist activities with a fear that all new buildings will be demolished.
That would mean that very nearly all sizeable Palestinian buildings were
engaged in directly supporting terrorist acts. Nex

You keep talking about "terrorists" without explaining what you mean.
Without a definition I'm afraid the impression is that you are just
spouting propaganda. Now you have enlisted "buildings" into the army
of "terrorists" - what next - Palestinians are not allowed to breathe,
since "terrorists" need oxygen?

J

Following up to Alan Pollock

A free trade zone in that general area with Israel could be an amazing success
story. People in that part of the world are quick-witted and have been trading
for millennia. It's a natural.

that's a constructive idea

All evidence points to the contrary. Do nothing and they'll take advantage of
perceived weakness. They aren't called terroristws for their expertise in
needlepoint.

you don't do nothing, you try and contain without provoking even
more violence, the situation is now so bad however that things
will not calm down easily or quickly IMHO.

Agreed, these are the areas where eventually the problems must be
unraveled and addressed, every tank round, bulldozer or rocket
just puts it further out of reach.

I don't agree. As long as each Israeli attack is in retaliation for a
terrorist attack, they're above-board.

You miss my point. It does not matter if its above board or fair,
what matters is does it achieve the overall objective of less
violence?

Let the terrorists stop terrorizing and sure, I can see the day when some
spokesman for Hamas will mellow-out and become an official of the new state.
Change happens. But I think you're mixing things up by comparing Palestinian
Terrorists to the IRA, or Palestinians to Northern Irish Catholics. It's
tempting, but fraught with pitfalls.

It was a tightrope in NI, appointing people as ministers while
they would not renounce violence. Palestine is miles from that
but steps must move in the right direction.

At some point rewarding Palestinian peace yes, will be advantageous. Let's
hope that it's close in time. With Arafat at the helm I don't see it. With
groups like Hamas garnering such tremendous popular support, I don't see it.

so can you reduce that support with tank rounds?

In the meantime you deal with the terrorists in the manner they deserve.

No! You deal with the terrorists in the way that most nearly gets
what you want.

The Palestinian population comes to its senses and wants to really talk? They'll
talk somehow. Terrorists become an impediment? Palestinians will do something
about them. In the meantime you deal with it. Nex

It wont happen by magic. It wont happen out of the barrel of a
gun. Terrorists cannot be defeated on the battlefield.

Forget all the above!
Think of Israeli policy as a business plan.
You set your strategy.
After x months you review.
Profits down, sales down
What do you do, more of the same or a new strategy?
--
Mike Reid
"Art is the lie that reveals the truth" P.Picasso
UK walking "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" -- you can email us@ this site
Spain,cuisines and walking "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk" -- dontuse@ all, it's a spamtrap

Alan Pollock wrote in message ...
The Reid wrote:
Following up to Alan Pollock

Which implicitly means accepting terrorism first?

I don't see going after terrorists as escalating anything. They're terrorists,
and they're the ones doing the escalating.

The Palestinians see it the other way round. It makes no
difference saying that they are terrorists, a strategy has to see
the issues from the mindset of the enemy too.

A strategy yes, but one usually stops short of doing what the opponent wants
you to do, unless it makes sense, which in this case it doesn't. Not until the
Palestinians show some good faith instead of hysteria.

They're not showing 'hysteria', they're showing desperation. They have
tried talking, giving concessions, living in the world's biggest
prison, and all the time the land confiscations and military
oppression continued. They see themselves as having nothing left to
lose. That's a bad place to put someone, if you want to have a cozy
agreement with them.

Going after groups that continually
target and kill innocent civilians is a good thing.

only if the outcome is less violence, currently it produces more
violence.

And the alternative is what? Doing nothing? Allowing busloads of civilians to
get continually blown-up? Make the exercise easier for the terrorists?

There you go again - the "t" word - what does it mean? Does a murderer
stop being a murderer when he puts on an Israeli army uniform?

The old tired phrase
'cycle of violence' tends to validate the idea that the Israelis and the
terrorists are somehow morally equal.

It might be tired but it *is* a cycle of violence.


On one level yes, but it's a vague level that doesn't distinguish much.


Moral equality is irrelevant, your fighting a war, you need
strategy that will get the desired results. Where is the Isreali
endgame?

The endgame is security. The endgame is that Palestinians will at some point
grow tired of relegating themselves to the backwaters of the civilized world.
They'll eventually understand that they can't achieve the impossible by doing
the unthinkable.

The problem is that the only terms Israel will accept are terms that
amount to the dissolution of any meaningful Palestinian homeland. No
Palestinian can accept such terms, any more than an Israeli could
accept the dissolution of Israel qnd the return of the Israelis to
Germany and Russia.

A free trade zone in that general area with Israel could be an amazing success
story. People in that part of the world are quick-witted and have been trading
for millennia. It's a natural.

But no, hatred is so much more seductive, isn't it? Especially when egged-on
by so many. Heroic hyperbole at its best, but totally unrealistic and terribly
counter-productive. How can democracy take root in such hysteria? How can good
trading practices flourish? Lots of help will be needed.

So to end this 'hysteria' you propose ... oh yes!! let's blow up
people's homes, dig up their orchards, smear excrement on the walls of
their schools, watch them die like dogs in the road at checkpoints
while preventing them from reaching help. Not likely to work, is it?

But if you mean escalation in the battle for the hearts and minds of the
Palestinian public, then pandering to them might temporarily forestall
violence, sure, for a few microseconds as a strategic posture until the next
time somthing irks them and all of a sudden terrorism again becomes the
'answer'. Meanwhile going after terrorists and making it more difficult for
them is the logical, pragmatic response.

How can it be logical if it does not work?

All evidence points to the contrary. Do nothing and they'll take advantage of
perceived weakness. They aren't called terroristws for their expertise in
needlepoint.


Palestinians are going to have to change their own society themselves.

Or with help.

Yes, with massive help. But in the end they must want to change. That time
isn't here, or they would have already.

No, they can't. They can only change when a politician delivers
something. Since that would depend on the Israelis giving something
for the politician to deliver, then it can never happen, as the
Israelis give nothing and demand everything.

We only made progress in NI by fighting terrorism with policing
methods with military backup AND addressing the grievances.
Against a far less ruthless and less widely supported enemy with
a weaker grievance (although backed with some US money from
noraid) the IRA were very effective in the mainland bombing
campaign.

Grievances of the population. Did Israel not offer a large part of what the
Palestinians wanted but were turned down anyway? Your comparisons with NI only
go so far.

No, that is incorrect.

Coddling Palestinian terrorists doesn't help

Hitting them with rockets, hinders.

Timing is everything. Right now, with such thriving popular hysteria? Hinders
less than doing nothing.

Stated without proof.

, especially when Palestinian
society struggles with difficult but not impossible social and political
changes. The best help stable first-world nations can give is education in
democracy, rights and laws, backed-up by strictly-controlled gifts of money.

Agreed, these are the areas where eventually the problems must be
unraveled and addressed, every tank round, bulldozer or rocket
just puts it further out of reach.

I don't agree. As long as each Israeli attack is in retaliation for a
terrorist attack, they're above-board.

a) They aren't - they're largely pre-emptive.
b) They're massively disproportionate and reckless

Rewarding terrorism is no help at all.

Rewarding terrorism seems to be working in NI. Some of the
terrorists are ministers now.


Let the terrorists stop terrorizing and sure, I can see the day when some
spokesman for Hamas will mellow-out and become an official of the new state.
Change happens. But I think you're mixing things up by comparing Palestinian
Terrorists to the IRA, or Palestinians to Northern Irish Catholics. It's
tempting, but fraught with pitfalls.

At some point rewarding Palestinian peace yes, will be advantageous. Let's
hope that it's close in time. With Arafat at the helm I don't see it. With
groups like Hamas garnering such tremendous popular support, I don't see it.

In the meantime you deal with the terrorists in the manner they deserve. The
Palestinian population comes to its senses and wants to really talk? They'll
talk somehow. Terrorists become an impediment? Palestinians will do something
about them. In the meantime you deal with it. Nex

Blah blah blah "terrorist" this, "terrorist" that - all meaningless
name-calling. Start looking at facts and not labels and you can make
progress.

J.

In article ,
(Jeremy) wrote:

Alan Pollock wrote in message
...
The Reid wrote:
Following up to Alan Pollock

Which implicitly means accepting terrorism first?

I don't see going after terrorists as escalating anything. They're
terrorists,
and they're the ones doing the escalating.

The Palestinians see it the other way round. It makes no
difference saying that they are terrorists, a strategy has to see
the issues from the mindset of the enemy too.

A strategy yes, but one usually stops short of doing what the opponent
wants
you to do, unless it makes sense, which in this case it doesn't. Not until
the
Palestinians show some good faith instead of hysteria.

They're not showing 'hysteria', they're showing desperation. They have
tried talking, giving concessions, living in the world's biggest
prison, and all the time the land confiscations and military
oppression continued. They see themselves as having nothing left to
lose. That's a bad place to put someone, if you want to have a cozy
agreement with them.


Hummm... why don't the 1000s and 1000s of the same peoples in an actual
prison camp in Jordan do the same then... by many objective criteria
they are much worse off ?

jay
Fri, Sep 12, 2003


--

Legend insists that as he finished his abject...
Galileo muttered under his breath: "Nevertheless, it does move."

Alan Pollock wrote:
Miguel Cruz wrote:
I don't see going after terrorists as escalating anything. They're
terrorists, and they're the ones doing the escalating.

Everyone who uses more violence than they did last time is escalating.

Then the term 'escalation' is meaningless. Give it some value and we'll
talk.

Well, no, that's what it means. It is a counter-productive thing and
everyone who does it is contributing to the animosity that fuels the next
round of violence from the other side.

Well there you go saying what you think, giving value to that neutral word
'escalation'. Now we Can talk. To my way of thinking, if terrorists represent
the majority of a population then talks are impossible.

The majority of Palestinians are obviously not terrorists, regardless of
what some might say. Most people are just trying to eke out a living.

If that's not the case, then escalation only deals punishing terrorists,
and doesn't necessarily impact talks with the legal representatives of the
Palestinian population.

It does, because the retaliation is blunt and heavy-handed and thus creates
resentment among the general population, who are then less and less
supportive of leaders who advocate conciliatory positions. You then need
progressively greater (and rarer) leaders in order to pull it off. It's come
to the point where we're waiting for Abraham Lincoln to show up.

The retaliation is blunt and heavy-handed because this sort of action is
simply not an effective way to deal with large-scale homegrown terrorism.
It's like using a pistol to stop a hive of angry bees from stinging you.

Clearly there is a moral difference. I will say this much with you:
Attacking civilians to achieve political ends is purely evil. Fighting
back to try to stop it is not in and of itself evil. However, if after
many years time has shown that the only effect is a lot of corpses, then
continuing that course starts to become less and less defensible, at
least to me.

Okay, I get your train of thought. IMO it's up to the Palestinian people
and their reps to stop the terrorists from acting, and not the retaliating
nation that has its civilians purposely killed.

That's a fair opinion.

But the goal here is not to have the appropriate party make the appropriate
first move in accordance with your opinion of who's right and wrong.

The goal here is to stop the violence so people can live in peace. This
requires sufficient wisdom and maturity to see beyond issues of face-saving
and "but he started it!"

The terrorists don't need convincing, they need something stronger. It's
the Palestinian _populace_ that needs to understand what's in their best
interest. It's the populace that needs to see how mass hysteria prevents
them from living freely, getting educated, gaining wealth, and leading
happy lives.

And how do you propose to show them that? Before the intifadah they saw
settlers moving in on their land, severe curtailments on movement, economic,
and political rights, and their water being stolen out from under their
feet. At this point you're not going to be able to teach this lesson by
pointing at Israeli behavior in the typical Palestinian's memory.

After the terrorists are hounded from the area by Palestinians, or quietly
become middle-class and merge into the population to deal with their Own
lives for a change yes, the sky's the limit. There isn't much law there
now. You don't coddle those whose aim it is to keep hysteria alive.

The terrorists will not be hounded out so long as they represent the only
avenue they are provided with for vicarious expression of outrage.

Likewise in the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Only a sick fringe of each
side believes that the other needs to be pushed into the sea. Most people on
both sides just want security and economic stability and cultural
independence.

You fail to mention the hysterical hatred on the Palestinian side that
supports - no, feeds - the terrorists both in the physical sense and in the
emotional.

This thinking exists on both sides. I do not mean to suggest that only the
Israelis are guilty; far from it. The Palestinians are more desperate and
angry, no doubt. They have less to eat, less to do, less freedom, and they
watch their neighbors live in relative luxury. To be sure, Israel built
itself up with a lot of hard work, but nonetheless for an 18-year-old
Palestinian with no job and no prospects, a history lesson is slim
comfort.

It prevents the acceptance of good deals. At this point, it practically
ensures that if a deal is struck, nothing at all will again ignite the
hysteria, the public killings of their own, the terror of Palestinians by
Palestinians. It's sad, and wrong to equate this with the situation in
Israel. I know you didn't, but many do in an attempt to be 'fair.'

I guess I see it somewhat different. Every time it seems like a deal is
close, some Palestinians in the radical fringe commit another atrocity, and
then Israel walks away from the table. This has happened so many times it is
utterly predictable. And therefore Israel has made the entire process
hostage to the craziest player, which is so idiotic I begin to wonder
whether it's actually just convenient.

Sure there is a core of radicalized people who have become sick with rage or
just pure sociopathy who would take advantage of newfound freedom to hurt
the Israelis. But they will burn themselves out eventually - without the
outrage, support will die off. Suicide bombers will stop volunteering.
Non-suicide attackers will stop finding it worth the risk, given the
increasing abstraction of the issue. And outside entities that funnel in
money won't have the shocking footage to point to when they're passing
around the hat.

That'd be a happy day. But it's not going to happen because Israel shows
weakness, or lies down belly-up.

The fact that so many people see dog-pack metaphor as applicable here
definitely highlights the problem. It is not showing weakness to weather an
attack or two in the name of long-term peace. To the contrary, it shows
strength.

It'll happen because Palestinian just-plain-folks will get fed-up with the
tyranny these groups exert over them and their futures. Meanwhile those
who want to support Palestinian terrorism will always do so, not because
of any 'shocking footage', but for their own reasons.

The ones who do it for their own reasons are pretty small in number. The
people kicking in to the various charities and the like that funnel money
down there are doing it because they feel they are serving the cause of
justice. You may disagree over whether they are in fact serving justice, but
I don't think you can disagree that they are trying to, to their way of
thinking.

Well, I really think it has come to the point where large parts of the
Israeli military have dehumanized Palestinians in their minds. They may
make some calculations based on public relations factors but I don't see
these people valuing life on the other side of the barbed wire fence the
same way they value it on theirs. None which is to say anything about the
valuations made by their opponents.

In their minds? Isn't this what some Palestinians would have you believe?

The fact that some Palestinians have made the same observation doesn't make
it true, or false.

That the Israelis are inhuman, they've dehumanized their opponents and so
on.

I didn't say they were "inhuman." Simply put, the psychological impact of
fighting against these people for so long, in such close conditions, with
such violence, is that people start to dehumanize their opponents, or else
go crazy.

Part of this is of course what's necessary in order to function as a
soldier when you may sometimes have orders to kill. But this has dragged
on long enough that the dehumanization has become endemic. I have had
very disturbing conversations with recent members of the Israeli army in
which they looked me in the eye and equated Palestinians, as a class,
with animals. This is not the path to reconciliation.

Anecdotal. For what it's worth, it's worth nothing. I value your experience,
but it's not representative.

Well, maybe, maybe not. But it's the best I have to go on.

I don't think one can really link the destruction of buildings harboring
terrorist activities with a fear that all new buildings will be demolished.

I think you can, given the number of destroyed buildings that in fact have
not been shown to have harbored terrorist activities. Not to mention the
number of multi-user buildings in which some tenants had no idea what other
tenants were up to, and yet lost their homes or places of work. I have no
idea what my neighbors here in Washington DC are up to, and if the
government blows up my building, I'm not going to feel safe anywhere in the
city - how do I know the same isn't going on in the next place I move to?

That would mean that very nearly all sizeable Palestinian buildings were
engaged in directly supporting terrorist acts.

Buildings are fairly passive creatures.

miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos and tales from around the world: http://travel.u.nu
Site remodeled 10-Sept-2003: Hundreds of new photos, easier navigation.

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003 19:19:04 GMT, (Miguel Cruz) wrote:

I guess I see it somewhat different. Every time it seems like a deal is
close, some Palestinians in the radical fringe commit another atrocity, and
then Israel walks away from the table. This has happened so many times it is
utterly predictable. And therefore Israel has made the entire process
hostage to the craziest player, which is so idiotic I begin to wonder
whether it's actually just convenient.


It certainly appears that way. I do wonder whether the Zionist Jews
truly just want to see Islam wiped of the face of the earth, thinking
that is somehow their purpose in life.

Having said that, I have met many, many reasonable Israelies whom I
have plenty of time for. I have never met an Israelie that vocally
expressed a hatred for Muslims.

It's a funny old world...
---
DFM

I don't think this is going anywhere.

To me, this is all looking like a particularly unruly dish of noodles, what
with the intertwined quotes and counter-quotes. Also, I don't see any
attitudes changing - not mine, nor anyone else's. I do see a horse that's
close to falling, and I suggest we stop beating it.

I do thank the few who participated in this mini sub-thread with me. Twas a
slice, folks! Nex