Nick, Israel has turned over money to the PA in the past. It hasn’t done a thing to stop the suicide attacks, or the rocket attacks. Also, so what if Hamas is the legitimately elected government of the PA? That legit government has also vowed to destroy Israel. It would be crazy to give any cash to Hamas, no matter how it came to power.
Well, if somebody’s going to take the high road it’s gotta be Israel. Their attacks are all (?) military. Hamas can endorse or defend or condemn or whatever attacks by Palestinians, but it’s not like them saying ‘cut it out guyz’ would stop suicide attacks altogether. They should all call a ceasefire and Israel should hold up their end no matter what. That might help, maybe. I still think the final solution (lol) is nukes.
Yes, toddy, but Hamas didn’t actually carry out these attacks. The 2000+ restrained artillery shells onto civilian farmland was the response to random militants with homemade rocket launchers. The current bombing was the result of a militant group that Hamas has only defended in words, not directed the actions of. If Hamas does carry out an attack on civilians, or directs another group to do the same, I will have considerably less sympathy for the Palestinians should the Israelis decide to retaliate.
Can’t you see the Catch 22 situation here? It’s been playing for a long time, and nothing changes. If the Israelis don’t hand over the money, then how can the PA be reasonably expected to control their own police force, let alone the criminal elements. The police in Gaza stormed the government offices in Gaza only Saturday because they haven’t been paid in weeks. How can a government be reasonably expected to deal with rocket launching militants in a situation like that?
The exact same thing has been going on for years: the Israelis destroy or constrain the ability of the PA to go about its business, and then points to their failure and say “well this just proves we need to be running their affairs for them”. Like when the invaded they West Bank back in 2001 and destroyed the entire infrastructure of the Palestinian government in Ramalla, even down to smashing up opticians. Immediately afterwards the PA was told to deal with the militants or suffer the consequences. One Palestinian described the situation as being tied up with rope, thrown in the sea, and being told to swim.
It’s their money. Do you understand that? This isn’t aid that we’re talking about; this is taxes paid by the Palestinians, for the Palestinian Authority. Israel collects the money in accordance with their agreement with the PA because they have the infrastructure to do so.
And no, I’m not blaming Israel for the bombing. Pay attention to what I’m saying. I’m blaming Israel for expecting this bombing to happen, and not taking a course of action beforehand that would actually help bolster the peace process, which is what giving the PA what they owed them would have done. Because, see, there was a slight chance that that would have stopped this attack, but if it didn’t, which it probably wouldn’t have, Hamas would have had to either condemn the attack, or be responsible for handing all of its tax revenues over to Israel. Their choice. Any of those possibilities would make the situation better, and what actually happened made the situation worse.
This “Israel is in the right, because they’re dealing with monsters” stuff is retarded. Sure, maybe it’s true, but just saying “but that guy’s such a bad guy, and he’s obviously my enemy, so why would I give him anything,” combined with thinking no more than ten minutes ahead at any given time, is a perfect recipe for not acheiving peace, ever.
There is hardly any recipe for negotiating a lasting peace with someone who thinks that it is Allah’s will that you and all of your ilk be killed horribly.
Good thing that’s not who they have to negotiate peace with.
http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm
I quote from a portion of the Hamas Charter Article 13, which states:
There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors. The Palestinian people know better than to consent to having their future, rights and fate toyed with. As in said in the honourable Hadith:
“The people of Syria are Allah’s lash in His land. He wreaks His vengeance through them against whomsoever He wishes among His slaves It is unthinkable that those who are double-faced among them should prosper over the faithful. They will certainly die out of grief and desperation.”
It’s an old document but it’s not been revoked, as far as I know. It also cites this as part of the preamble:
Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
I mean, Hamas isn’t who they have to negotiate peace with. Not that they shouldn’t give it a shot, but nobody’s going to knock them for not succeeding in forging a lasting peace with those guys. The people they have to negotiate with are the Palestinians as a whole, and they mostly aren’t a bunch of psychopaths who want to destroy Israel.
Remember, Hamas got elected not because of their rabidly-anti-Israel, militant Islamic charter, but because Fatah was corrupt and inept, and it appeared to most Palestinians that Hamas would do a better job running the day to day affairs of the PA government. Without the access to the taxes paid by Palestinians, they’re going to have a tough time doing that… now, do you think it would be better for Israel to do what they did, which is withold the tax money that rightfully belongs to Hamas and make the Palestinians think that Hamas would be doing fine if Israel wasn’t hamstringing them, or do you think it would be better for Israel to give them the money, let Hamas fuck it up, and then have the Palestinians know that Hamas is responsible for hamstringing themselves? Which do you think is more conducive to peace in the long run?
The IRA were the same, and to an extent still are: the Real IRA continue to insist there will be no cessation of violence until Northern Ireland ceases to be. Just because this is what they have said, doesn’t mean they can’t change. Even those who cannot change can be marginalised, or persuaded to wait another generation until they have enough power to achieve their goals (by the time the power balance is achieved, people will have mostly forgotten about the issues anyway).
The majority of humanity just wants to get along with their lives; this is the same for Palestinians as it is for Israelis, Americans and Europeans. People like Hamas and the IRA are useful for populations to rally behind in times of distress, because they actually do something, but in the long term they will damage the hopes for the prosperity which the majority of humanity seeks, and so will be discarded by the Palestinians (or they will change like the IRA) as long as peace and stability can be secured in the region. Peace and stability is the only way to bring increased prosperity to the majority.
Unfortunately, and this is where Israel is very much at fault, stability and prosperity (and thus peace) cannot come about while the state of Palestine suffers the economic subjugation it does currently. The people of Gaza have economic blockades, no ports or airports for exporting their produce, their homes and farms are constantly destroyed by the IDF, and they can’t even spend what little tax money that the Israelis collect for them. This kind of situation breeds hopelessness, breeds hatred, and breeds suicide bombers.
Look, this is the meaningless chain of violence: Hamas gets money, funds more bombers, bombers blow up civilians in Israel, Israel responds with closures and strikes, Palestinians blame Israel. If Hamas doesn’t get the money, Palestinians blame Israel anyway, but at least Hamas is short a couple hundred of million dollars to fund crazed jihadi killers.
I doubt whether money being handed to Hamas makes very much difference to the Palestinian opinion of Israel in the long run, although I do accept that the money, being tax money imposed on Palestinians, should be handed over to Hamas as a matter of principle. You should not be holding someone to ransom with something that is rightfully theirs after all.
At this point, Hamas being democratically elected into power, any negotiation by Israel is in fact with Hamas. The Palestinians are just going to have to find someone else at the next elections if they want another reasonable shot at peace.
Tim: I don’t doubt Hamas can change. But until it does, we have to presume it’s status quo and business as usual.
Quick poll: how many of the people strongly implying they don’t care too much about the Palestianians people getting their tax money back from Isreal, because Hamas is a bunch of asses, are small government types?
Right, and Israel blew a perfect opportunity to make sure that either this happens, or Hamas reforms itself.
Yes the British example of attacking Iraq when some Pakastani and Afghani based terrorists attacked the United States was a fine example of restraint. Maybe Israel should just attack a weak uninvolved country and leave those poor terrorists alone.
When did the Real IRA last blow up a falafel stand?
All true. But where do you get off ascribing motives to the Palestinians? You’re acting like they only voted for Hamas because Fatah was wildly corrupt. Yet at the same time, Mardi Gras goes off in the streets of Ramallah every time some brave freedom fighter goes boom on a bus. Support for radical acts of horrific violence is very strong in the territories. There really is no denying that.
You can’t separate Hamas from the Palestinian population as a whole. Hamas is Palestine, at this point in time. We can debate for years over why that happened and dish out blame to Israel, Iran, the US and whatever other traditional culprit always gets mentioned in these discussions. But the bottom line is that the Palestinians picked Hamas, and that says it all to me.
Also, while hopeless breeds despair, it hasn’t been proven to breed Islamic suicide bombers. Do we really have to have the whole “most suicide bombers come from middle- or upper-class backgrounds” debate again? That kid who blew himself up this past week was attending university not long ago, and had a job as a waiter. Sure, he wasn’t wealthy, but he wasn’t exactly impoverished, nor was he living under intolerable conditions. If this is reasonable motivation to kaboom yourself, anyone here with a McJob qualifies.
I agree that Israel has done a lot to get the situation to where it is now, but come on. One state holding back money from another isn’t justification to kill random civilians whenever you feel like it.
That’s nice and all, but no one has said or holds the position you’re disagreeing with:
One state holding back money from another is justification to kill random civilians whenever you feel like it.
Just because something is unethical/evil/whatever doesn’t make it go away. You’re not going to win by yammering the opponent into being a better person, and you certainly don’t want to win by slaughtering them all.
When did the Real IRA last blow up a falafel stand?
It’s not through lack of trying. Only this week hundreds of pounds of explosives were discovered in an apartment in Northern Ireland, suspected as being part of a planned bombing campaign. Just before I left for Germany they put car bombs in a busy shopping street in the city of Birmingham, just 20 miles from where I live and a street I regularly shop on. Thankfully they were uncovered by the police, but not because of any warning.
The IRA are, and some continue to be, heartless killers. Please stop trying to pretend they aren’t. It might suit your argument to believe that they aren’t, but it is insulting to those who have been murdered by them.
The IRA and their actions are also celebrated by the Catholic population of Northern Ireland. They paint murals all over the city of Belfast, usually with symbols of violence such as the rocket launcher and AK-47 prominently displayed as part of the tribute to their perceived heroism. This is in spite of the fact that they have killed thousands. They have even killed more Catholics than any other party in the conflict, and still they are heroes.
The people of Northern Ireland are hardly starving or without representation either. The problem is that the Protestants held all the cards: owned all the companies and gave all the jobs (to other Protestants usually). The power and wealth imbalance, coupled with the feeling of having had their land stolen from them, is the cause of the hatred and violence. Sound familiar?
I agree that it was shown in a recent study that most of Al Qaeda’s suicide bombers were not your typical downtrodden wretch, but they are fighting a different kind of battle to the Palestinian. Al Qaeda’s fight is ideological, and I believe not widely supported even if many Muslims may like to see them giving a black eye to America. The fight of the Palestinians however is the same as in Northern Ireland: secular issues divided down religious lines.
This makes the Palestinian terrorist different, and I’d wager you’d not find the same demographic for them as with Al Qaeda, any more than you’d find a similarity between the IRA and the Bader-Meinhof Gang.
BTW, I wish you’d avoid the fact spinning and tabloid style presentation of information. You make out like the recent suicide bomber was a graduate working in a restaurant like many Western students, but that’s not the truth. He was from the backwoods, a village in the West Bank. He wasn’t studying at a university. He was doing some distance learning program in social studies run by a university, and not a degree. He was forced to drop from the course because his mother couldn’t afford to support him. Since then he drifted from dead-end job to dead-end job before deciding to go out in a blaze of glory.
You know what the problem here is, Toddy? It’s that you just refuse to see this as anything other than “Hamas=terrorists=bad, and therefore Israel is justified in whatever they do.” Nobody, nobody here is saying that Hamas is a shining beacon of hope for the Middle East, and Israel is a big black raincloud trying to shut it out. All I’m saying is that Israel is handling this situation in a way that is either incredibly stupid or just regular stupid with a side of non-demonstrative of commitment to the notion of peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians, most likely the latter. Please try to understand that, this time, before we have another round of “Israel really should have done this,” followed by “Shut up! Hamas is the devil!”
I don’t think anyone disagreed with that, but people blowing up civilians isn’t a reason to hold on to the money either.
So we can agree: they are all doomed. =)