On Wednesday 05 December 2001 19:55, you wrote:
> Trent Shipley wrote:
> >Making total war on a state's own (barely armed) subjects can at best be
> >interpreted as collective responsibility or brutal massacre. In the worst
> >case it amounts to calculated genocide. This is even more apparent when
> > the subjects are a non-citizen subordinate "caste" and ethnically
> > distinct from the occupying party.
>
> But here, both sides are doing just that - the Palestinians rarely
> engage Israeli authorities, preferring the "let's go and murder a bunch
> of civilians" approach.
This is an important element in asymetrical warfare. It would be *pointless*
(not mererly suicidal, but an utter waste of resources) for the Palestinians
to engage Israeli defence or police forces.
The Palestinians can't fight the Israeli army...so they don't. They attack
meaningful targets of opportunity. (Whether sucicide attacks on civilians is
an optimal tactical deployment of available resources...well I didn't say
that suicide bombing of civilians was the *best* tactic availble to the
Palestinians, just that under the circumstaces it was a reasonable choice.)
> Calculated Genocide is a long way from what we
> see from the Israelis. There is plenty enough of that going on in the
> rest of the world, so that when the Israelis restrain from doing that,
> you should give them credit for it.
I grudgingly acknowledge your point. (Whether this restraint is in fact a
strategic mistake on the part of the Israelis...well, I am on record as
saying the optimal game-theoritic outcome for the Israelis and Zionists in
general is the effective de-Arabization of Palestine. Furthermore I have
said that this is not the optimal end-of-game condition for the US, other
Western Allies, Islamdom, Arabs, or the Palestinians. However, the
de-Arabization of Palestine is an _acceptable_ end-of-game condition for the
US, and even for the rest of the West.)
> >Yes. Israel has the "right" to engage their Palestinian enemy. However,
> >fighting a counter-insurgency necessarilly makes one the oppressor of a
> >victimized weaker party. It also complicates matters for the agressor and
> >gives the inherently weaker party a superior political-military position
> > than if they were a recognized sovereign state that had to fight a
> > "justified" (provoked) invasion by a tormented enemy.
>
> Again, Israel is careful to only "retailiate". The only advances since
> 1948 have been response to an external attack (the ongoing settlement
> expansion is again a detrimental effect, but not really on the scale of
> the advances made in conflict). This puts Israel in a similar position
> to the Phillipines v Moro, Spaniards v Basques etc, and not on the same
> scale as China v Tibet or Indonesia v E. Timor/Indonesia v Irian Jaya,
> which is how you seem to be characterising the Israeli position.
I disagree. To the best of my knowledge Basques are not non-citizens in
Spain. For that matter only a tiny minority of Basques support ETA and few
even want out of the Spanish state.
Israel is a *colonial* power. That is the whole point of Israeli settlement.
A significant minority of Israelis want to ANNEX the West Bank--Sharon has
been on record as one of those supporting annexation (if memory serves,
however, I do not know his latest position on this). There is even a
significant minority of Israelis (and Christian Zionists) who hold that
Israel has a religious _obligation_ to annex the territories occuptied in
1967 (less the Golan. Why Gaza counts as a critical part of Biblical Israel
is still beyond me. Why anyone but a Palestinian would want that
historically marginal accursed port is beyond me.)
Bottom line: Israel is in a postion very like Britain in Ireland (pre-Irish
indepence), France in Algeria, China in Tibet, or the Javanese Indonesians in
East Timor or Irian Jaya. They are occupiers at best and total colonists at
worst (from the perspective of the indigenous Palestinians).
> >If there were a Palestinian State, Israel could "justify" and conduct war
> >against it.
>
> Actually - no. The world has moved on from that - we won't accept it in
> Kuwait, we won't accept it in Falklands/Malvinas - Indonesia may well be
> the last to successfully attack and occupy another country, and that's
> not working out so well either.
Hardly. Witness Vietnam in Cambodia, Iraq-Iran war, or even the US & co. in
Afghanistan.
If the hypothetical Palestinian state were to attack directly, by proxy, or
even fail to keep the peace of the border through weakness Israel could
"justify" proportional measures of self-help.
The pattern is not to make war and stay but to invoke some fig-leaf of right
to self defense then knock the crap out of the irritating neighbor and go
home.
Rinse. Repeat as needed.
> >Israel's problem is that the Palestinians aren't quite as weak as the
> > Kurds, or Brazilian indians, or dissident regligious groups in China, or
> > Sub-Sahelian Africans in Sudan, or... Actually the Palestinians have
> > been remarkably efficient at making the Zionists pay for every advance in
> > the Zionist project.
>
> Actually, their problem is that their international position IS
> important to them (whether they like it or not, the US will enforce
> this), whereas China, Sudan etc don't really give a damn what other
> countries think of the counter-insurgency programs.
Hm. Israel has a reputation for ignoring international opinion.
> The only success the
> Palestinians enjoy over the others you mentioned is a high international
> profile - ironically largely due to Israel's free press and democratic
> standards.
They have a higher profile surely, but don't discount the power of a
sympathetic press in Arabophone and Islamic countries.
