Mitzna

[svero]

So what do the Israeli hawks that fly this board think of Mtizna?

[Ben Shniper]

He's Israel's option to surrender in the war on terrorism. With 20 more people dead today, he has a slightly better shot.

Once Israel surrenders to Arafat's demands of a state without peace, you can count on a bigger war starting soon after. Just like this "intifadah" was launched with Hizbollah's support after Israel withdrew from there with a paper peace.

-Ben

[svero]

I've read a little but exactly what does he advocate in terms of a "surrender" as you put it? I've read that he's not a religious man. Is that true? Will that affect his chances seriously?

[Ben Shniper]

Imagine a US President who said that in response to the September 11th attacks, he would immediately work out a deal with the Taliban where Osama would be put on trial by Taliban law in Afghanistan without any chance for extradition. Imagine a president who would withdraw immediately all troops from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in accordance with Osama's wishes. Imagine that President not doing anything about Saddam's subsequent takeover of most of the oil of the world.

That's Mitzna.

-Ben

[svero]

So let's just suppose for a second that Mitzna was voted into office and he did all these sorts of things. And I realize you don't believe this will happen, but If the violence in Israel did cease and led to a 10 yr period of stability would you consider it the right decision? (Hypothetically speaking..)

[Ben Shniper]

Originally posted by svero
So let's just suppose for a second that Mitzna was voted into office and he did all these sorts of things. And I realize you don't believe this will happen, but If the violence in Israel did cease and led to a 10 yr period of stability would you consider it the right decision? (Hypothetically speaking..)

Are you saying that appeasement might work?

Jews, like any other group, have to rely on themselves first and foremost for defense. Noone else can reduce that burden by much. If Jews won't defend themselves, then why should anyone else?

So, my answer is a definate no. If Mitzna did these kind of unilateral concessions, I would not considder that to be an honorable peace, regardless of how long it lasted.

-Ben

[Megalodon]

Originally posted by Ben Shniper
So, my answer is a definate no. If Mitzna did these kind of unilateral concessions, I would not considder that to be an honorable peace, regardless of how long it lasted.

-Ben

There is no honor on the Israeli position right now, so were does that leaves us?

[Ben Shniper]

Originally posted by Megalodon


There is no honor on the Israeli position right now, so were does that leaves us?

Israel must fight for its existance. Palestinians are at best fighting for a 24th Arab nation to be carved out of one of the smallest countries in the world, or more accurately Israel's destruction if you read their internal press releases.

If there is no honor in fighting for one's existance, then perhaps there is no honor period. I get the feeling you don't like my argument about honor because you don't believe in honor.

That's fine. But in that case I'd say that making peace with lifelong terrorists was immoral (if you believe in morality), or at least self destructive (if you believe in the right of humans to fight for survival), or at the very least illogical (if you believe in the use of logic as a tool for survival).

-Ben

[Aardvark_DK]

One is reminded of Black Adder:

"There are three things you can do:

1. Kill yourself.

2. Kill your manservant.

3. Kill everybody in the whole world."


Me? I'm a #3 kinda guy!

[Doctor X]

Aadvark:

Indeed! I have been tempted to suggest a new solution. Since the US is a warmongering sociopath of a nation that is either a vassal of Israel or just waiting for the excuse to betray Israel, I propose the US military invade all of Palestine and transport all of the Israelis and Palestinians to Des Moines.

In their place we will give the land to the Chechens. They have had 3,000+ years to make the region peaceful; it is someone else's turn.

If either of the Palestinians or Isrealis complain, we move them to Compton. After that, Branson, Missouri, but I may have to check some internation legal statutes about that level of punishment.

Of course, they could just stop killing one another. The Israelis could, just perchance, cease trying to take over Palestinian lands by fiat by building more settlements whilst, Heavens to Betsy, the Palestinians could cease blowing up a bunch of children.

Probably too much to ask. . . .

--J.D.

[Aardvark_DK]

Originally posted by Doctor X
by fiat
What does a financially troubled Italian car manufacturer have to do with the conflict in the West Bank (loan and savings)?

[Doctor X]

Well . . . if you do not know . . . there is just no hope educating you to the Truth [Tm.--Ed.]

--J. "A Conspiracy, my Brutha! A C-O-N . . . spriacy!" D.

[Megalodon]

Originally posted by Ben Shniper


Israel must fight for its existance.

No, they're not. They are by far the most powerful nation in the area. No country in there would try to destroy Israel. Most, probably all of Israel problems are a consequence of the settlements in a foreign land.
So the fight is not one of survival. It's one of occupation against the will of the residing citizens. If you think there is honor in that, than you have a very twisted sense of honor..


I get the feeling you don't like my argument about honor because you don't believe in honor.

I believe in honor. And I know a lot of different honor codes. My personal honor code says that a huge, powerful army killing children in a foreign land and using rockets against civilian targets is wrong.

That's fine. But in that case I'd say that making peace with lifelong terrorists was immoral (if you believe in morality), or at least self destructive (if you believe in the right of humans to fight for survival), or at the very least illogical (if you believe in the use of logic as a tool for survival).

Nice words, but pure nonsense. If you make peace with "lifelong terrorists", than they are no longer terrorists, and you have peace.
You were asked:

Originally posted by svero

...but If the violence in Israel did cease and led to a 10 yr period of stability would you consider it the right decision? (Hypothetically speaking..)

And replied that it would not be an honorable peace, so it would not be a right decision.

So your position must be something of the sort: let's kill them all, fill palestine with israelis and then we will have peace.

Is that correct?

[corplinx]

Originally posted by svero
So let's just suppose for a second that Mitzna was voted into office and he did all these sorts of things. And I realize you don't believe this will happen, but If the violence in Israel did cease and led to a 10 yr period of stability would you consider it the right decision? (Hypothetically speaking..)

There is a flaw here. The palestine terror groups _believe_ that it is right and holy to kill the jewish infidels. If Israel stopped retaliating that would just give them more leeway.

[Megalodon]

Originally posted by corplinx


There is a flaw here. The palestine terror groups _believe_ that it is right and holy to kill the jewish infidels. If Israel stopped retaliating that would just give them more leeway.

No flaw. It's an hipothetical question, asked (I assume, I apologize to svero if it isn't so) to see how deep is Ben's prejudice against any peace possibility that exclude the biblical "it's your land, so kill them all"

[Starshark]

Originally posted by corplinx


There is a flaw here. The palestine terror groups _believe_ that it is right and holy to kill the jewish infidels. If Israel stopped retaliating that would just give them more leeway.

Do you happen to have a reference for this comment?

[Ben Shniper]

Originally posted by Megalodon


No flaw. It's an hipothetical question, asked (I assume, I apologize to svero if it isn't so) to see how deep is Ben's prejudice against any peace possibility that exclude the biblical "it's your land, so kill them all"

Here's a hypothetical for you:

If a peace partner stole billions from his own people, gets elected with 99% of the vote each time while preaching democracy, never lifts a finger to stop the most atrocious terrorism imaginable, rejects all peace deals, and secretly funds these terrorist groups with millions of dollars from hostile nations like Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, would you have peace?

-Ben

[Nitpick]

Originally posted by Doctor X
...fiat...


Originally posted by Aardvark_DK

What does a financially troubled Italian car manufacturer have to do with the conflict in the West Bank (loan and savings)?

"fiat" (Latin) = ~"Let it be done" => a decree, an arbitrary/authoritative order
(e.g. "Fiat lux" = Let there be light)

[Aardvark_DK]

I'm pretty sure he was talking about the car manufacturer.

[svero]

Originally posted by corplinx


There is a flaw here. The palestine terror groups _believe_ that it is right and holy to kill the jewish infidels. If Israel stopped retaliating that would just give them more leeway.

Yes, I'm well aware of how the Israeli right thinks in this regard. Personally I don't believe it. Killing Jewish Infidels, as you or they put it, is a direct response to the behaviour of the Israeli govt. People are far more motivated by dead relatives or curfews, or their houses being bulldozed than by some abstract religiously motivated ideology. They flock to the religion when they have nothing left, and corrupt leaders like Arafat know that. Religion is and always has been a tool of the elite to control the masses.

[Starshark]

I notice, too, that Ben is slow to provide evidence for that sweeping claim.

C'mon Ben! Surely there's a right-wing conspiracy theory page out there that supports you?

[Ben Shniper]

Originally posted by Starshark
I notice, too, that Ben is slow to provide evidence for that sweeping claim.

C'mon Ben! Surely there's a right-wing conspiracy theory page out there that supports you?

That's because I have no evidence. Just propaganda, see.

The difference is that "evidence" is the stuff you agree with, and propaganda is the stuff you reject.


http://www.idf.il/arafat/terrorism2/english/main_index.stm

http://www.idf.il/Fatah/english/main_index.stm

more in the "archive" link here:

http://www.idf.il/newsite/english/main.stm


-Ben

[Starshark]

Hmm. Well, you've certainly proven that there are Palestinians who perpetuate terrorist attacks. But where's the bit about it being 'right and holy'? And why apply it to all Palestinians?

Isn't that just like me saying "Israelis think it's right and holy to bomb Lebanon"?

[Megalodon]

Originally posted by Ben Shniper


Here's a hypothetical for you:

If a peace partner stole billions from his own people, gets elected with 99% of the vote each time while preaching democracy, never lifts a finger to stop the most atrocious terrorism imaginable,


It doesn't matter. If it is a peace partner, you don't have anything to do with the internal affairs of that particular country. Every country as the government they deserve. If the palestinians want a better one, they have to fight for themselves.

And as it as been widely showned, never lifting a finger to stop terrorism as not been an impediment for Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to be considered allies...

BTW, "the most atrocious terrorism imaginable" is state terrorism against civilians, that was supported by the US in the East Timor situation, and is still done in Israel.


Originally posted by Ben Shniper

rejects all peace deals, and secretly funds these terrorist groups with millions of dollars from hostile nations like Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, would you have peace?

-Ben

Of course, if it rejects all peace deals, it is not a peace partner, so this is not appliable...

[Doctor X]

And not just Fiat . . . is not anyone concerned about the bases Nissan has been building?!!!

--J. "Back and to the Left!!" D.

[Math Maniac]

On a trip several years ago, my wife, my best friend and I happened to meet Mitzna--as Mayor of Haifa. Got a picture of it as well.

This has nothing "real" to do with this thread, but I thought I'd say that my feelings were that he was a very nice guy (I don't dabble in Israeli politics, however, so it could make no difference whether or not he wins). But it would be kinda neat to have met the PM of a country (even if it was before his rise to greatness).

Just my thoughts,

Brad

[Ben Shniper]

Originally posted by Math Maniac
On a trip several years ago, my wife, my best friend and I happened to meet Mitzna--as Mayor of Haifa. Got a picture of it as well.


A humane point to make. Yes, I have heard over and over that Mitzna is a relatively honest and upstanding guy. I don't doubt it. But I don't like his politics for the current era. After peace can be made then maybe, but not in the middle of a war Arafat started because he thought he could trade blood for concessions.

I'm unconvinced that Mitzna is skeptical enoughh of Arafat's promised versus demonstrated intentions.

-Ben

[Ben Shniper]

Here is a link to a report showing a third party actually backing up some of the sources I have put from the IDF.
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/isrl-pa/

This third party regularly speaks about Israeli actions against Palestinians, it is a relatively unbiased source.

[quote]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apologetic statements by public officials have also been accompanied by the broadcast of incendiary statements on publicly funded television. There were several recorded instances of such broadcasts on the official PA television channel in 2001, particularly in the broadcasts of weekly Friday prayer sermons. Among these were the live broadcasts of Shaikh Ibrahim Ma`adi delivering sermons from a Gaza mosque on June 8, 2001, and again on August 3, 2001. "Blessed are the people who strap bombs onto their bodies or those of their sons," Ma'adi said on the first of these occasions. On the second, he explicitly called for bombings in Tel Aviv, Hadera, Ashkelon, and other Israeli cities, adding:

The Jews have bared their teeth. They have said what they have said and done what they have done. And they will not be deterred except by the color of the blood of their filthy people. They will not be deterred unless we willingly and voluntarily blow ourselves up among them.93

In the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such statements constitute incitement to crimes against humanity. Under international criminal law, the PA has a responsibility to ensure they are neither broadcast nor published, and should bring to justice those who make them.
....

There have been several reports of segments on PA television that explicitly encourage children to take part in clashes with Israeli forces and extol the virtues of martyrdom.

...

On August 26, 2002, the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate called on Palestinian armed factions to stop using children, and declared that it was "absolutely forbidden" for photojournalists to take pictures of children carrying weapons or taking part in militant activities. The statement said that footage of armed children served "the interests of Israel and its propaganda against the Palestinian people." Tawfiq Abu Khousa, deputy chair of the syndicate, said, "We have decided to forbid taking any footage of armed children, because we consider that as a clear violation of the rights of children and for negative effects these pictures have on the Palestinian people."3

It is the encouragement of children to carry weapons and take part in armed activity that is wrong, not media coverage of these activities.
...
Human Rights Watch found that there were steps that the PA could have taken to prevent or deter such attacks, but that it remained unwilling to risk the political cost of acting decisively. The PA routinely failed to investigate, arrest and prosecute persons believed to be responsible for these attacks, and did not take credible steps to reprimand, discipline, or bring to justice those members of its own security services who, in violation of declared PA policy, participated in such attacks. In addition, although President Arafat repeatedly condemned suicide attacks against civilians, he consistently failed to insist that terms of honor and respect such as "martyr"-which Palestinians use to designate persons who have died or suffered grave loss in clashes with Israeli forces or settlers-should not apply to people who die in the course of carrying out indiscriminate attacks against civilians.

....
The PA's failure to act in an effective and consistent manner against Palestinian attacks on civilians contributed to an atmosphere of impunity, allowing the armed groups to conclude that there would be no serious consequence for those who planned or carried out attacks that amounted to war crimes, and in the cases of suicide bombings, crimes against humanity. This failure reflects a high degree of political responsibility on the part of President Arafat and the PA leadership for the many civilian deaths that have resulted.

...

As the spiral of violence wound tighter, the Palestinian Authority continued to condemn publicly armed attacks that deliberately targeted civilians but, except for a brief period from mid-December 2001 to mid-January 2002, took no clear or credible actions to prevent such attacks or to punish those responsible.

...

Although the PA's legal governing authority derives from the Oslo Accords signed with Israel, the duty to prevent systematic indiscriminate attacks against civilians is not contingent on Israeli compliance with those accords or rendered null by what the PA regards as Israeli violations of the accords. That duty should not be a bargaining chip whose implementation is subject to political negotiations. As the political authority in place, the PA has a responsibility to bring to justice individuals who order, plan, or carry out attacks against civilians. The PA has failed to meet this obligation.

When the PA made arrests, they were often indiscriminate, picking up supporters of one or another militant group without regard to any alleged responsibility for the serious crimes being committed in the name of that group. Instead of being investigated, detained suspects were typically held without charge and later released. The PA has explained these releases as a response to the danger posed by Israeli bombings of places of detention, but it has not tried to explain why suspects were not investigated, charged, or brought to trial.
...

In the first weeks of the clashes, the PA released numerous detainees, most of them members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, some of whom had been in PA detention without charge or trial for several years.78 According to press reports, the first releases took place on October 4, 2000, when twelve Hamas detainees were released from Gaza Central Prison. Subsequent releases occurred over the following week. A PA security official in Gaza claimed that by mid-October the PA had "begun to re-arrest them."79 In Nablus, fourteen of the thirty-five who had been released reportedly responded to a summons to turn themselves back in.80 Hamas political leader `Abd al-`Aziz al-Rantisi was rearrested on October 18 and released again on December 26, 2000, at the end of Ramadan.81

The Islamic Jihad organization has cited these releases as a factor contributing to the group's ability to carry out attacks against Israeli targets.
...

Some of the detainees released at the beginning of the uprising, as well as other armed militants and political critics of the PA, were re-detained and re-released periodically during 2001. Some were formally arrested and, beginning in late October 2001, the PA started using administrative detention orders to detain suspects. Individuals known to be leaders of groups responsible for attacks against civilians nevertheless continued to operate openly in the West Bank and Gaza Strip-in the case of Bethlehem-area al-Aqsa Brigades leader Atef Abayat, even when technically under "house arrest."

...

In mid-April 2001, the PA confirmed that it had released Muhammad Deyf, imprisoned since 1996 for his role in the Hamas suicide bomb attacks in February of that year, although officials insisted he remained under their control in "a safe place where he cannot be reached by the Israeli authorities."86 No such pretenses were made when Deyf narrowly escaped death in an Israeli rocket attack targeting him as he traveled by car in Gaza city on September 26, 2002.87
..

In another captured document, al-Karmi approached Arafat via Marwan Barghouti, requesting payments to twelve "fighter brethren," not including himself.123 Despite al-Karmi's own self-proclaimed responsibility for attacks on civilians, Arafat granted a payment of $350 to each individual on al-Karmi's list, again without making any apparent effort to ensure that these fighters were not responsible for attacks on civilians. The payments were made on January 7, 2002, a week before al-Karmi was assassinated. At the time of his assassination, according to media reports, the PA had assured European Union officials that al-Karmi was under arrest.124 According to one report, he was assassinated "while visiting his wife and daughter during a furlough from the `protective custody' of a PA jail."125

....

Based on its own investigation as well as media accounts and publicly available, captured PA documents, Human Rights Watch identified instances in which individuals employed in one or another Palestinian security force were involved in shooting or suicide bomb attacks targeting civilians. Human Rights Watch also found that individual members of the PA security forces have had ongoing associations with armed groups that have carried out suicide bombing attacks on civilians. On at least two occasions, individual members of PA intelligence services assisted perpetrators in carrying out such attacks.139
...

The PA should have made credible efforts to reprimand, discipline, or, where appropriate, bring to justice members of its own security services who, in apparent disregard for declared PA policies, participated in or lent support to those responsible for attacks against civilians. Insofar as Human Rights Watch could determine, it did not do so.
...


High-ranking PA officials, including President Arafat, failed in their duty to administer justice and enforce the rule of law in compliance with international standards. Through their repeated failure to arrest or prosecute individuals alleged to have planned or carried out suicide attacks against civilians, they contributed a climate of impunity-and failed to prevent the bloody consequences. Their payments to, and recruitment of, individuals responsible for attacks against civilians likewise demonstrate, at least, a serious failure to meet their political responsibilities as the governing authorities, if not a willingness to support them. However, there is no publicly available evidence that Arafat or other senior PA officials ordered, planned, or carried out such attacks.

[quote]

{thanks renata for this link}

-Ben