At 12:48 24-12-01 -0500, Gautam Mukunda wrote: >is that you seem to refuse to acknowledge that a lot of Arabs - >perhaps even a majority of the Palestinians - _do_ want to destroy Israel >and will do everything they can to achieve that. Arab terrorists attack >Israeli children. Israel attacks Arab terrorists.
Jeroen: Also, Arabs attack other targets as well; Israel also attacks innocent people and jails members of her own population for publicly disagreeing with the Israeli government. Now, I realise that sometimes children get killed in terrorist attacks, but to make it seem as if they are the only targets of Arab terrorists is a cheap shot IMO. Me: Actually, it's a fairly accurate summation of what's happening, at the moment. Hamas and Islamic Jihad seem to have adopted a deliberate policy of hitting areas frequented by children and teenagers. Discos and pizza parlors are the two most memorable examples. Israel does not, in general, attack innocent people. Some innocent people may be killed, but it is clear that Israel goes to significant efforts to limit this from happening. Finally, Israel does not jail people for disagreeing with their government. Israel has free speech protections as good as those in the Netherlands - better, actually, if I remember the surveys on the topic that I've read correctly. If you knew anything about the Israeli government you would know that. Ilana's grasp of English is not perfect and her words do not have the meaning that you are trying to put upon them. I am, I should add, familiar with at least the outlines of the cases which she is describing. I find it noteable that you, who constantly claim that your limit ed grasp of English is the reason you say things that some of us on the list find outrageous, refuse to do so for someone else, whose English is clearly not the equal of your own. >And you seem to prefer the terrorists. Jeroen: No, I do not prefer the terrorists. As I have pointed out repeatedly, I do not support actions that kill innocent people. In the conflict as a whole, however, I do side with the Palestinians. I do not advocate the destruction of Israel, but I do believe the Palestinians have as much right to their own country as the Israeli's have. I do believe that Israel has no right to treat the Palestinians in the way they are treating them. Me: That is, however, not enough. Do you believe that the Palestinians have a right to all of Jerusalem? All of the West Bank? All of the Gaza Strip? Should Israel be at its 1967 borders? Its 1948 borders? Israel has been attacked three times by its neighbors, who have publicly and repeatedly stated their desire to destroy it. Do you believe that it has a right to defensible borders? If not, why not? >Do you acknowledge that a powerful segment of the >Palestinians _does_ intend to destroy Israel? That's a yes or no question. Jeroen: I know there is a segment of the Palestinians that want to destroy Israel. Their power is, however, limited. Hamas does not equal the Palestinian Authority; as usual with fundamentalists, they are very vocal but also relatively small in numbers. I was not, BTW, saying that *all* Palestinians are peace-loving people who would be quite happy to live with their Israeli neighbours. I was trying to get the point across to Ilana that, despite her apparent beliefs, not all Palestinians (and not all Arabs) want to kill her and destroy Israel. Me: Do you have evidence that the fundamentalists are very small in numbers? Recent public opinion polls in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip suggest that a majority of Palestinians do support Hamas. What is _your_ evidence that this is not the case? You accept that some Palestinians do want to destroy Israel. Do you then accept that Israel has the right to stop them from attacking it? Do you accept that Israel has the right to hunt down people who have launched these attacks in the past? If not, why not? >Jeroen: >We do? How? We still do business with Israel. We still maintain diplomatic >relations with Israel. We aided in the defense of Israel during the Gulf >War. We do not round up and deport Israeli's when Israel launches another >attack against the Palestinians. Heck, the Dutch Minister of Defense even >supported Israel's most recent actions against Yasser Arafat. > >Me: >Every so often I feel like calling you on things like this, Jeroen. _How_, >exactly, did the Netherlands aid in the defense of Israel during the Gulf >War? Give us an example of an _action_, nor rhetoric (if there was even >that). As was obvious from the part you snipped, the "we" did not refer to The Netherlands, but to Europe. I do not know what exactly the other European countries did, but I do know that the Dutch did deploy mobile ground-to-air-missile launchers to take out Scuds. The numbers and exact locations were (for obvious reasons) kept secret at the time; I do not know if that information has already been made public. Me: I obviously did not find it obvious that this was the meaning of your statement. The Dutch sent mobile ground-to-air missile launchers to _Israel_? Mobile SAMs capable of intercepting ballistic missiles? Please provide a citation on that, if that is what you are implying. I know that the United States did. I also know that Israel had great difficulty allowing it to do that, and I doubt that the Israeli government would trust anyone other than the United States to do that. >And notably, you don't point out whether you _supported_ that >defense or not. Was it correct for the US and Britain to take steps to >stop the Scud launches on Israel? Jeroen: IIRC, the US has an agreement with Israel that it will defend Israel against attacks. Under that agreement, the US were correct in trying to stop Scud attacks. I am not sure if Britain has a similar agreement with Israel, but I am pretty sure the rest of Europe does not have such an agreement with Israel. Given Israel's behaviour in the Middle East, I do not believe we should have defended her. Me: First, I am fairly certain that you recall incorrectly. The US has no such agreement with Israel. Many people - myself included - think that it should. But it does not. I find your last sentence most interesting, however. If I understand it correctly, you're saying that you believe that Israel's behavior in the Middle East is so bad that when a country randomly launches missiles at Israeli cities - that's okay with you? You think that Europe should do nothing to prevent it? What, then, is your objection to terrorist attacks? You constantly criticize Israel and the US for killing innocent civilians - often in circumstances where both have gone to great lengths to prevent that from happening. But when Iraq does it, you have no objections? Is it only Israelis who do not have the right to live without fear in your mind? They should accept the chance of randomly being killed by ballistic missile? I'll go farther. You condemn American foreign policy constantly in terms just as vitriolic as those you use to condemn Israel. Do you feel, then, that Europe should do nothing to help prevent future attacks like that on 9/11 on the United States? You have previously stated that you felt that the Netherlands should not help for fear of inviting future attacks on itself. Do you also feel that the United States is not worthy of protection? If not, why not, given your previous statements? Gautam
