Monday, November 16, 2009

Israel as a wife beater

It sometimes seems to me that in defending itself Israel uses some of the arguments depoloyed by wife abusers to excuse their behavior.

"She provoked me." That is a standard defense. She cursed me, she slapped me in the face, she even kicked me in the knee with her sharp-pointed shoes, and it did hurt. Can you expect me not to react? By the way, since I punched both her eyes black, she has stopped attacking me, either verbally or physically.

But no court, be it in the US, Argentina or Israel, would accept that defense. The judge would tell the defendant that while his wife has the power to cause him a modest amount of pain, he has the power to kill her with his fists. The overwhelmingly stronger side in a conflict has a greater obligation to show restraint than the side that is basically unable to cause any actual harm. If the husband doesn't want to be kicked or scratched, he must seek an arrangement, for instance by leaving the house (leaving the house altogether, not just one room) and paying support money to his spouse and children.

That is, in a nutshell, what judge Goldstone has told Israel. Hamas' attacks were mostly a nuisance, with people in Israel being more likely to die as bystanders in drive-by shootings from internecine Jewish mafia warfare than from a Qassam or a Grad. Few Israelis took Hamas' toothless rockets seriously; on the contrary, bloodthirsty Israeli Jews flocked to Sderot to watch the carnage live undeterred by the (extremely low) chances of being hit by one of the enemy's imprecise devices. In that context, Goldstone affirms, the amount of death inflicted by Israel is unwarrantedly disproportionate. He's being hated a lot for saying so, and, more to the point, for being a Jew who says so.

Another defense wife-batterers usually put up is, "I don't know how this could come about." The wife is bruised and bleeding and has missing teeth and two or three broken bones, yet the guy doesn't know how it all happened, as if he was seized by supernatural forces he had no control over. This is what the Israeli government says re the continual illegal outpost expansion in the West Bank. It just happens; the IDF can't do anything. As Haaretz reported a few days ago, quoting a defense official:

"The settlers are very much in tune with the ticking political clock," the senior defense source said. "You can sense it on the ground, with the infrastructure work that is being done, but also in more minor things. They are acting without any legal authorization and are ignoring the state.

"The approach at this time is that whoever can, goes ahead and builds," the source continued. "It begins with the official leadership of the Yesha Council [of settlements] and ends with the hilltop youth."


The source is fully aware of the hindrance this means in terms of an eventual evacuation as part of a two-state solution:

He pointed out that the phenomenon of unbridled construction is evident in both the more established settlements and in the illegal outposts.

"Whoever can, lays the floor in preparation for constructing a building; and in factories they add extensions to roofs. In some settlements, they've built factories for rapid construction of caravans on site, so that they can bypass the ban - on transporting caravans - which was issued by the Civil Administration. Everything was done with the intent of creating a critical mass in many different locations at once, which will make evacuation in the future [more] difficult," he said.

Note how this security source speaks of it as if it were fate-ordained. It's all illegal, he has no qualms admitting that, just like a wife abuser admits that battering his wife is also illegal. But then he describes the process as something that just goes on, as if the defense establishment he belongs to had no power whatsoever to stop it.

Mr. Unnamed Official, I believe Israel has a procedure to deal with illegal construction. What was the name for it? Oh, yes -- house demolitions. As for those factories where they make the caravans, here's an idea you may have not thought of -- factory demolitions. Is it too much to ask why you are not using your army's proven capabilities for removing lawbreakers from where they're illegally residing? Can you be seriously describing with a straight face the criminal actions of Israeli citizens without facing up to the fact that it's your duty to stop them -- very much like a violent husband describes the abuse he inflicted on his wife while maintaining that he wasn't actually aware of what he was doing?

Who is going to jail wife-battering Israel? Although Richard Goldstone is a judge, he cannot convict the offending country. There's only one judge who can. A judge who for a while seemed to have gathered the courage to indict Israel over its "unwilling" expansion in the West Bank. But he finally showed his true colors and dropped the case. Shame on you, Judge Obama, for letting shepherd-clubbing, grove-burning, land-grabbing Israel to walk free once again, in spite of the harm it visits on the wife it forcibly took.

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well said.

Gert said...

Absolutely excellent. I've got a few things to post but I think I might just reprint your post over at mine...

Gideon Levy on Israel's addiction to Occupation - YouTube

jhrhv said...

The IDF said it would not tolerate any attacks by terror organizations against Israel and its citizens, adding that nearly 270 rockets and mortar shells had been fired at the South since the end of Operation Cast Lead on January 18, in comparison to over 3300 rockets and mortars fired in the year before the operation. The last month had seen approximately 15 rockets and mortar shells fired at Israel from Gaza, said the army.

Proof positive that Cast Lead was an effective campaign

Habara Buster Buster said...

A muslim using wife beater as an analogy oh the irony.

BTW Cast Lead was not only effective it was justified.

muslims defend the model human moehamet raping his 9 year old wife. :) Wife Beater BWAHAHAHA!!!!

Yitzchak Goodman said...

Ibrahim, is there any instance of asymmetric warfare where you couldn't use this analogy to condemn the stronger side?

Habara Buster Buster said...

Mohamed was a pedophile, Muslims are wife beaters. Agreed.

And you're a racist.

It must really bother a Jew hater like you that Israel and Jews are so much more powerful then anything your idiotic side can muster.

Hasbara Buster Buster said...

BTW Gert I look forward to spending your retirement savings on my condo while you work until the day you die.

andrew r said...

Gert: I think HBB is the new handle for anonymous.

jhrhv: If I had a square km of Lebanon everytime an Israeli operation was "effective", the Zionist entity would be out to liquidate me. Terrorism was supposed to end after Aug. 1982.

Fact is, Cast Lead got more Israelis killed in a few days than 6 months of ceasefire, even if Israel shattered it after 4 months.

What's more, even 15 rockets and mortars in a month is worse than what was achieved by last year's ceasefire. All four whole months the ceasefire lasted, each month had even fewer attacks.

http://www.israelpolitik.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/gaza_fact_sheet.pdf

Israel will always be attacked somehow until it stops trying to remove people from their land. No one would up and go quietly.

Tsofah said...

This is an "original" arguement to be sure. However, I've a hard time seeing someone launching rockets, killing kibbutz workers from other countries, kidnapping and killing soldiers, digging tunnels for more munitions, and a destroying a vibrant community left by Jews forced from there homes into a place overseen by the terrorist organization Hamas as a "wife". Or beaten by Israel, for that matter.

Nice propoganda, but children in Sderot are terrified to go outside. Gas stations have been hit by Kassam's, homes have been hit, schools have been hit. This is not an innocent launching of rockets into deserted areas. And it's not just a mild "provocation".

It's like a little kid kicking and punching a bigger kid until the bigger kid runs out of patients and hits back. Then, of course, the bigger kid is the one that gets into trouble.

andrew r said...

Tsofah, I'm going to call a spade a spade - you feign ignorance and act like Israel's done nothing wrong. Israel started the relationship of warfare against civilians when it ethnically cleansed the Palestinians in 1948 and barred their return. For Gaza in particular: After 1967 the Gaza port was closed (yes, Gaza was blockaded from the sea a good 20 years before Hamas existed). In 1971, twelve-thousand people were deported to detention camps in Sinai just for being related to suspected guerrilla fighters. Gazans had to put up for 42 years with IDF tanks rolling through their streets. They didn't and still don't get a normal civilian life, since the territory is blockaded on all sides, can't even get in or out by sea. And this is before going into Operation Cast Lead. Palestinian kids are afraid bombs will drop on them at school.

Israel has the right to target civilians at their leisure. Only Palestinians are in the wrong if they do the same.

No, the bigger kid has been hitting the little kid in the sternum repeatedly, and then when the little kid dares to fight back the bigger kid gets a fighter jet.

P.S. On a minor note, the IDF destroyed the evacuated settlements, not Hamas. And for the Jews forced from their homes in Gaza, cry me a river. They went straight to the West Bank and the Negev, so they get to occupy more expropriated land.

andrew r said...

Bring this a little closer to Ibrahim's original point, because we can list Israeli atrocities all day, Hamas has shown repeatedly they can honor a political settlement, having fired no rockets for months and even arresting smaller militias for doing as much. Israel has never demonstrated for one day it can stop attacking Palestinians. It cynically exploits the economic and military advantage knowing it can peacefully get the other side to stop attacking, but prefers violence because that's the only way to get what it wants. Until the Palestinians disappear, Israel is glad to have a few rockets, the better to whip society into a frenzied mass.

jhrhv said...

"Fact is, Cast Lead got more Israelis killed in a few days than 6 months of ceasefire"

andrew i'm not even going to attempt to make sense of most of your post. But to think the KIA numbers from Cast Lead somehow favor the Arabs shows how deluded you are and that any Jewish blood is worth any level of exponential loss to supporters of PalArabs. You must be another one of those you'll let the PalArabs fight to the very last drop of their own blood long as you don't have to put your own mental ass on the line for them.

Tsofah said...

Andrew:

I feign nothing. I'm certainly not ignorant of the facts. Sure, Israel and the Arabs both have made mistakes. However, I've never seen Israeli's hijack planes and sit on tarmacks throwing bodies out of the plane. I've never seen Israeli's throw a man in a wheelchair off a cruise ship. I've never seen Israeli's target an infant sleeping beside it's mother; or bash the head in of a child after killing it's parents.

Reactive warfare is different when you are not purposely targeting a playground, as in Israel's case. It would help if the terrorist (Hamas, Tanzim, etc) population would not hide in the middle of churches and hospitals as they fire upon military and civilian alike. I've seen it in Beit Jala and in Gilo. Abu Tor was more peaceful comparatively.

As far as Gaza: yes, the IDF forced Jews out. Yes, SOME of the buildings, etc. were destroyed. But many were left in tact when the Jews left as well.

The 1948 "expulsion" of Arabic peoples is yet another mis-information tactic. Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia immediately launched an attack on Israel as soon as the British pulled out in 1948. They were determined to destroy the newly re-established Israel immediately. The Mufti and other leaders told the Arabic population to leave the city for their own safey. They told the people after they killed the Jews, it would be safe and the people could then come back. Well, Israel won the battle of self defense.

Btw. the Jewish populations of Iraq, Iran, Syria, were expelled from their countries when the UN acknowledged the state of Israel.

Arafat started his PLO activities against Jordan (which is a country established in 1946). Arafat knew that Jordan comprised the majority of former Palestine and from it a Palestinian state should come. Jordan, however, kicked Arafat and his PLO out, not putting up with the violent attacks. Israel has shown much more patience.

Personally, I'm sorry for both peoples. It seems since Jordan DOES own 83 percent of former Palestine, it should be required to provide land as well. Before the Yom Kippur War, Jordan owned the West Bank. Egypt owned Gaza. Again, Jordan and Egypt lost the land in the self defense battles of Israel.

So, where did the UN leave land to the Palestinians? They did not, instead handing it over to other countries to oversee for the Palestinians. THAT is not Israel fault.

I have friends both Arabic and Israeli. They do not like warfare at all. But they have taught me a lot, especially my Arabic friends.

With that in mind I have written this.

Ibrahim Ibn Yusuf said...

Ibrahim, is there any instance of asymmetric warfare where you couldn't use this analogy to condemn the stronger side?

I believe even in the worst days of IRA terrorism the British Army spared Irish civilians? Even when the terrorists hid among those civilians...

But you've addressed only part of my argument, so allow me to ask you: is the IDF's failure to stop illegal settlers, even as it slams them, acceptable to you?

andrew r said...

jhrvh - Israel got Israelis killed by starting Cast Lead who would still be alive if they just kept the ceasefire intact. That's how effective the operation was. I don't let the Palestinians do anything, how they react to ethnic cleansing isn't up me. Got anymore silly rhetoric?

andrew r said...

I've never seen Israeli's...

No, because you don't look. Ask yourself, when do people flee because they expect a third party to win on their behalf? Why would those same leaders tell the Palestinians to run away instead of recruit them as fighters? And when you invade a country, is it to your advantage to have the local population help you out, or is it a great idea to make themselves refugees so you have that problem on top of everything else?

When you do some critical thinking, nevermind actual research, the old fairytale about the Arabs who left because they were instructed doesn't bear scrutiny.

At this point people like to go over Deir Yassin, Plan Dalet, Tantura, al-Dawayima, Haifa, Jaffa and other notable places that signify the nakba but here's something to think about: Palestinians who spent the whole war in their village and were expelled only after the armistice with Egypt was signed.

"In connection with the Egyptian-Israeli General Armistice Agreement, I confirm the understanding that, in the course of the evacuation of the Egyptian Force at Al Faluja, provided for in Article III of the Agreement, such of the civilian population at Al Faluja and Iraq Al Manshiya as may wish to do so may also be evacuated along with the Egyptian force. Those of the civilian population who may wish to remain in Al Faluja and Iraq Al Manshiya are to be permitted to do so. Those of the civilian population who may wish to do so may proceed to the Hebron area under United Nations escort and supervision. All of these civilians shall be fully secure in their persons, abodes, property and personal effects."

Would you like to know what happened to these villages? Well, they were demolished by Yitzhak Rabin.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9705.shtml

"Stranded and surrounded, the Egyptians were in no position to stay in the area. To their credit, however, they insisted as a condition of their withdrawal that Israel guarantee the safety of the civilians in the area -- about 2,000 locals and some 1,100 refugees from other parts of Palestine.

In principle, Israel accepted the Egyptians' demand. In an exchange of letters that were filed with the United Nations and appended to the main armistice agreement, the two governments agreed that civilians who wished to remain in al-Faluja and 'Iraq al-Manshiya would be permitted to do so, and that "All of these civilians shall be fully secure in their persons, abodes, property and personal effects."

Within days, however, it was clear that the agreement wasn't worth the paper it was written on. Under the direction of Yitzhak Rabin (later Prime Minister of Israel), and probably with the direct approval of founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, according to historian Benny Morris, Israeli troops promptly mounted "a short, sharp, well-orchestrated campaign of low-key violence and psychological warfare designed to intimidate the inhabitants into flight."

What Morris labels "low-key," however, probably didn't seem so to the victims. He himself quotes a survivor's testimony that the Israeli army "created a situation of terror, entered the houses and beat the people with rifle butts.""

andrew r said...

And a few Israeli civilians died during Cast Lead, too. They didn't die during the ceasefire Israel broke, to belabor the point.

jhrhv said...

"Israel hasn't exactly been able to do that, either, and they're much better equipped for the job than Hamas."

So you're saying Israel shouldn't have stopped attacking Gaza now? As it is they have pretty well slowed rocket attacks and it appears you are saying if Israel had not stopped attacks on gaza for a few weeks more they might have been more successful. I think we found something we can agree upon.

jhrhv said...

And a few Israel civilians died before cast lead. how many have died since from rocket attacks? Also in a pure numbers games the PalArabs did pretty badly in civilian deaths compared to Israelis.

If hamass and other terror groups thought they were as successful as you seem to think they were i dont think they would have agreed to a cease fire where only 10's of rockets get fired at Israel in a month compared to 100's.

Funny how you and other idiot arabs find only firing small numbers of rockets at israel is = to a cease fire.

jhrhv said...

for the record the land i want i live on and own. unlike palarabs who live on land yet want to see the inhabitants of land not that is not theirs slaughtered.

If Israel wanted more land it appears there isn't much that Arabs are able to do that could stop them. So this belief of yours that someone wants land that is not theirs is a projection form a deluded hate filled mind.

andrew r said...

"So you're saying Israel shouldn't have stopped attacking Gaza now?"

Israel never stopped attacking Gaza. The blockade. Israel can not stop rocket fire without a political settlement, because the kind of action it takes against a whole society inevitably brings a response.

"Funny how you and other idiot arabs find only firing small numbers of rockets at israel is = to a cease fire."

The parties that agreed to the ceasefire and weren't Israel followed it until Nov. 4. Factions that broke the ceasefire got arrested. I said this how many times now? I might as well teach addition to a cinder block.

"for the record the land i want i live on and own. unlike palarabs who live on land yet want to see the inhabitants of land not that is not theirs slaughtered."

Yeah, some people own the land they live on and some don't. Funny how that works. However, most people aren't banned from their country because of their race. That's what Israel does to the Palestinians, including the ones in Gaza who are originally from the coastal cities and Galilee.

"If Israel wanted more land it appears there isn't much that Arabs are able to do that could stop them."

Remember the Gaza disengagement? I think that one was called a reward for terrorism (still, Israel loots the natural gas resources of Gaza even if it can't settle it). Then there's Lebanon ~ the last attempt to invade it failed and in the 80's while Israel occupied the southern third of Lebanon for three years, Lebanese resistance forced it back to the 'security zone' where it stayed until 2000.

Gert said...

Andrew r:

Neither 'jhrjv', 'Tsofah' or 'THBB' are worth bothering with. Best left to their own devices and then they'll crawl back to the sand boxes like Elder of Ziyon from whence they came.

People who still use terms like PalArabs are ethno-centrists: no reasoning is possible in that part of the blogosphere: they're like football hooligans. They don't care about how the game is played, how 'well' or how 'badly', they only want to support their side at any cost. If the geopolitical accident that was US Cold War support for Israel had turned out differently they might just as frantically have supported the Arab side...

Yitzchak Goodman said...

I believe even in the worst days of IRA terrorism the British Army spared Irish civilians? Even when the terrorists hid among those civilians...

Is the US a "wife-beater" in Iraq?

But you've addressed only part of my argument, so allow me to ask you: is the IDF's failure to stop illegal settlers, even as it slams them, acceptable to you?

Israel removed every settlement from Gaza and it turns out to have been a very bad idea. I am not going to pronounce failure to take similar actions in the West Bank "unacceptable."

Ibrahim Ibn Yusuf said...

Israel removed every settlement from Gaza and it turns out to have been a very bad idea. I am not going to pronounce failure to take similar actions in the West Bank "unacceptable."

But my question was if it is acceptable for the IDF to moan about the illegality of the outposts while failing to remove them.

I know you would leave the outposts in place, but then you don't slam them. What I'm criticizing is Israel's hypocrisy and equivocation in slamming blatantly illegal activities while allowing them to happen.

jhrhv said...

towel head is acceptable vernacular for hasbara buster when he goes fishing for people to visit his blog so i don't see why it would be wrong for me to use it here.

Gert i was thinking of buggering off i mean there isn't much of interest here but now you are making me feel like i should stay.

if i make this site worse for those that visit it then at least hasbbys guest will know what it's like for those at the sites he pollutes with his none sense.

that is exactly the point i was trying to make by coming here. i'm happy to see it's working. thanks for that.

Gert said...

u r suhc a brave lttle ciber-worrier!

Yitzchak Goodman said...

What I'm criticizing is Israel's hypocrisy and equivocation in slamming blatantly illegal activities while allowing them to happen.

Sometimes it is better to work on understanding why things are the way they are.

No; a burglar who gets violent when he doesn't find the money is a better analogy.

And what is Al Qaeda's role in this analogy? Surely they aren't the burglary victim!

Ernie Halfdram said...

jhrhv:

'if i make this site worse for those that visit it then...that is exactly the point i was trying to make by coming here. i'm happy to see it's working. thanks for that.'

Feed the trolls and they will stick around to waste your time.

Gert said...

Yitzchak:

"And what is Al Qaeda's role in this analogy? Surely they aren't the burglary victim!"

Please explain what Al Qaeda have to do with this?

jhrhv said...

Wife Beating: Good Enough for Muhammad, Good Enough for You




The three major English translations of the Qur'an were completed by Muslims early in the 20th century. Though working independently, each translator came to the same conclusion concerning verse 4:34 - namely that it commands husbands to beat their wives in a manner that causes pain - if the circumstances agree (Yusuf Ali tried to mitigate this somewhat by adding the word "lightly" in parentheses).

Beating the wife who will not submit (albeit as a last resort) is very much in line with the traditional interpretation that Islamic clerics have held since the time of Muhammad. After all, the Qur'an plainly states that men are in charge of women.

Since Israel is dominant over the terrotories perhaps it could be viewed as the wife in this relationship.

Just sayin.

andrew r said...

And the Torah plainly states a woman's whole family can be killed if she's not married chaste. What's your point?

(yeah yeah, don't feed, I know)

Yitzchak Goodman said...

Please explain what Al Qaeda have to do with this?

I don't really understand the question, but does this help?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/21/AR2009112102009.html

andrew r said...

BTW Yitzchak, the disengagement wasn't a bad idea ~ it was a contingency plan because keeping 10,000 settlers among 1.5 million occupied people was too costly even for a foreign aid funnel. And make no mistake, when Israel pulls out of any land it's not a bid for peace, it's a setback.

jhrhv said...

I read the Torah once or twice and don't remember seeing that in there.

And besides what does what the Torah says have to do with a Muslim claiming Israel is a wife beater when under sharia it's okay?

Also I see myself more an invited guest than a troll.

Anonymous said...

Hamas' rockets attacks "mostly a nuisance"? Have you seen what a Hamas rocket attack looks like?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygb6VrW8WZw&NR=1

Now imagine living with nearly 10,000 of those, for years on end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel

These rocket attacks are war crimes as defined by Amnesty and Human Rights Watch.

Some nuisance.

Ibrahim Ibn Yusuf said...

While the rocket attacks were certainly a war crime, the damage they caused was minimal. So much so that Sderot residents are now longing for the days when the problem was the Qassams, not poverty.