> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht----- > Van: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Verzonden: woensdag 26 december 2001 18:31 > Aan: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Onderwerp: Re: Tragedy in Israel
> 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. Attacking innocent people is not limited to killing them. I also include in it: shooting at protesters, and destroying the homes of families of terrorists. And exactly what are those "significant efforts"? > Finally, Israel does not jail people for disagreeing with their > government. That was however what Ilana suggested. Later on she claimed Israel only arrests those that speak out against Rabin. I still find that worrying. Does the Dutch government jail those that speak out against any of our Prime Ministers or against the Queen? No, it does not. Does the US government jail those who speak out against any US president? Not AFAIK. > 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. Can you give me a source on that? I seriously doubt that Israel has better free speech protections than The Netherlands -- especially since Israel has been at war for most (if not all) of its existence, which is usually an excuse for a government to limit free speech. I do not know of any recent case in Dutch history in which a person's right to free speech was violated by the government. > Ilana's grasp of English is not perfect and her words do not have the > meaning that you are trying to put upon them. Can you give examples of this? Although her command of the English language leaves plenty of room for improvement, her comments usually leave little room for more than one interpretation. A few examples: "Mother/father/grandmother that are saying, how proud they are of shahid son/daughter and how they hope that their other offsprings would do the same thing - are guilty of harboring terrorists in *my* book." "Europeans are not anti-Semitic. They are pro-Arabs and anti-Israel." "...any individual-oriented, pro-life culture (however misguided it is), is superior to group-oriented anti-life culture." (She obviously refers to Arabs when she speaks of "group-oriented anti-life culture".) "What *I* believe is that Arabs want to kill me." > >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. Then what is enough? I get this feeling that people like you believe that we should fully and unconditionally support Israel and its actions, and fully and unconditionally condemn the Palestinians. Anything less than that seems to be unacceptable. > Should Israel be at its 1967 borders? Its 1948 borders? Definitely its 1948 borders. I am pretty sure that the people who in 1948 decided on where the Israeli borders should be gave it a lot of thought. I do not think they just threw a few darts at the map of the Middle East to decide where the borders should be. > Israel has been attacked three times by its neighbors, who have > publicly and repeatedly stated their desire to destroy it. Refresh my memory. When was the last time the government leaders of Israel's neighbours stated that they want to destroy Israel? Probably quite a while ago, since Israel is (according to Ilana) at peace with at least two of its neighbours. > Do you believe that it has a right to defensible borders? I believe it should stick to the borders it was given when the State of Israel was founded. Like every other country, Israel does not have the right to invade other countries simply because it does not like its own borders. Assume for a moment that back in 1948 we had done the right thing and not only mark an area on the map and call it "Israel", but simultaneously had marked another area and call it "Palestine". Would the US have accepted it if the Palestinian government would promptly have invaded other countries because it was not happy with the borders it was given? This is a yes/no question. Other example. The Dutch/German border is more or less a straight line running north/south. However, some way down from the top it looks as if Germany has taken a bite out of The Netherlands, which resulted in a more or less rectangular piece of Germany that is surrounded on three sides by The Netherlands. Would you find it acceptable if the Dutch would occupy that area because it would make the Dutch border better defensible? Again, a yes/no question. > 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? Since we are accusing those fundamentalists of being terrorists, I do not have to provide evidence of their numbers. If someone believes that those fundamentalists make up a large part of the population, it is up to him/her to prove it. I do not have to prove that a large number of people are NOT terrorists. > Recent public opinion polls in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip suggest > that a majority of Palestinians do support Hamas. Can you direct me to all the data of those polls? Results of polls are worthless if one can not examine the underlying data. What were the questions? How were the questions phrased? How many people were asked to give their opinion? How were those people selected? Is that group of people representative of the entire population? Also, were the people who said they supported Hamas also asked if they were willing to join Hamas and go on a suicide mission? Saying that you support Hamas is one thing -- acting on it is something else. A vast majority of the US civilian population supported the idea of attacking Afghanistan. But how many of those civilians then went to the nearest army recruitment office to join the army so they could fight in Afghanistan themselves? > 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? That would depend on the steps they take. If a terrorist flees to an other country, and Israel would cooperate with that country to find the terrorist, I would not have a problem with it. I do not find it acceptable though to invade and occupy other countries to stop and arrest terrorists. There was quite a lot of terrorism in Germany (1970's mostly, by the left-winged Rote Armee Fraktion). Several RAF members fled to Eastern Europe. Do you think it would be acceptable if Germany had invaded and occupied Eastern European countries in order to find the terrorists? If so, why? If not, why not? > 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? That is not what I said. I did not say that is was okay for Iraq to launch missiles at Israel -- I said we should not have defended Israel. Israel's military might is such that it can defend itself. > You think that Europe should do nothing to prevent it? What, then, is > your objection to terrorist attacks? I have answered that question several times already in the past. If you still do not know the answer, go look in the archive. > 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? Again, that is not what I said. > 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. What I said was that we should not send our soldiers to Afghanistan to fight your war. I have no problem with our Intelligence Agencies working together to find the terrorists and bring them to justice. Jeroen _________________________________________________________________________ Wonderful World of Brin-L Website: http://www.Brin-L.com Tom's Photo Gallery: http://tom.vanbaardwijk.com
