Fence or Machine of War?

Excerpts:

Israel's policy on the ground appears to be changing, from piecemeal acquisition of the Palestinian territories to the use of the “security fence” as a vehicle for more rapid and overt methods of large-scale population transfer, or ethnic cleansing. To understand how this might happen, the emerging "fence" must be placed within the escalating reality of Israel's operations in Palestinian territory over the past three years.

By the end of this summer, Israel’s occupation had reduced the Palestinian people to the poverty and malnutrition levels of sub-Saharan Africa, according to studies by the UN, the World Bank, and CARE International. The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food said in mid-October, "The occupied Palestinian territories are on the verge of humanitarian catastrophe as a result of extremely harsh military measures...There can be no justification for harsh internal closures that prevent people from having access to food and water; otherwise the imposition of such military measures amount to what has been called a ‘policy of starvation’.."

Israel’s incredibly dense network of army checkpoints, “flying” checkpoints, roadblocks and barriers has made travel for Palestinians in the West Bank almost impossible. A five-mile trip can take all day, waiting at checkpoints for hours on end out in the open, no shelter provided. If you don't have a permit, you cannot go to work, even if it is a quarter-mile away. It often doesn't matter if you’re having a baby or bleeding to death from an Israeli-inflicted wound - you wait. So far, thirty-one “checkpoint babies” have perished. (On the other hand, any Jew can use the bypass roads and get from one side of the West Bank to the other in minutes.)

Since Israel signed the Oslo Accords, the settler population has doubled to 390,000 (including the Israeli takeover of Palestinian neighborhoods and suburbs of Jerusalem), strewn over a thick web of at least 145 settlements and their interconnecting Jewish-only roads, blanketing the Palestinian West Bank.

Since the beginning of the Second Intifada three years ago, the Israeli army has been systematically wrecking Palestinian infrastructure throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Water mains, wells, and pumping stations, sewage systems, telephone and internet hubs, markets, airports, police stations, roads, civic buildings, mosques and churches, all have felt the special attentions of Israel’s bulldozers, bomb teams, helicopter gunships, and F-16s.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=4514

with the strike through text?

This deserves a kick. I urge everyone to read the entire piece to get a feel for what is actually happening with our tax money. We are complicit in this war crime.

If you imagine that some new "peace initiative" or act of Congress or the UN or the silly ditherings of Bush are going to halt this US-sponsored nightmare before the end of next year, you simply haven't been paying attention. In today's world, only one force possesses both the potential morality and the power required to stop this monumental crime. And it is something you should already have: outraged public opinion. You must rain it down upon the heads of this blind government like a torrent, or else surrender to the shame, and the consequences.

This is a very extraordinary piece.

This is the stupidest thing I have ever read (with the exception of every book ever written by Ann Coulter). The fence is just a fence, designed to keep terrorists out. It is not comparable to the Berlin Wall, as some people have implied, nor is it a "machine of war." It is not a human rights violation, nor a malicious plan by Israel. It is simply a fence, one built by nation that just wants to be safe.

You will learn to get use to the melodrama espoused.

Or is it Israel's territorial ambitions that it's securing?

I know! Let's give up all that territory we won in the Spanish-American War! That's far worse than anything Israel has done.

it was an act of aggression based on faulty evidence. Not unlike the current debacle in Iraq in some ways.

And it has nothing to do with Israel and the Occuppied Territories.

By the way, your oversized graphic distracts attention from your unsupported claims.

No offense.

What do you know that I don't?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

mr Locke hasn't seen the pictures of the so called "fence" which is a wall...

I don't want to bash a fellow AI member, but if Canadian or Mexican suicide bombers were attacking the U.S., America would respond in the same way.

If Mexican suicide bombers attacked the U.S., I would expect this administration to use it as a pretext to invade oil-rich Venezuela.

After all, Phillip Ruddock's one, and I think he's a nasty, racist right-wing prick....

Is that so? So you think it'd be acceptable for the US to build a wall deep inside Candadian or Mexican territory and try to use 'security' as an excuse for putting it there?


Violet...

Even if we used an example where Canada or Mexico launched an uprovoked attack on the US, what is the purpose served in building a wall deep inside their territory rather than along the border? In the case of our scenario with the US, it'd be violating the sovereignty of other states for a start, though I'm aware that the current US administration sees sovereignty as only a conditional thing for all other states, while demanding it's absolute for the US itself....

Apart from that, the suffering caused to the civilian population has to be taken into account, unless you think that punishing the civilian population in such a way is acceptable, in which case I'd be wondering why yr a member of AI in the first place...

Violet....

You didn't know that, did you?

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

You appear to be implying that the Palestinians being affected by the construction of the wall are all suicide-bombers or something. If that's not what yr implying, then it'd help if you clarified what yr trying to say, because it doesn't seem to have any context in this discussion....

Do you support the path the wall is taking?

belated edit: How does constructing a wall that's going deep into Palestinian territory do anything to stop suicide-bombers that a wall going as close to the Green Line as possible couldn't?


Violet...

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

know the wall is NOT about protection. But alas some are more Pope-like then the Pope....

How about you stop blowing me up and I stop blowing you up.

I would rather think that is more worthy of a :toast:

To bad that thought has escaped you.

but that needs both sides to do their part, not just the Palestinians stopping suicide bombings, but Israel with it's occupation, settlements and wall building. Until then...

You will condemn suicide bombings with your first words, then you will say BUT.....?

And lets not leave it to the specific use of suicide bombers. Within days and hours of the creation of the State of Israel aggression towards Israel began.

So spare me your chicken or egg theories please. I have yet to become fond of chicken ala egg. It tastes like shit.

want peace if you fail to see the problem on BOTH sides...

You said "until then". Sure sounds like a threat to me. You can either explain your "until then" or come up with something constructive besides your usual "Israel is always wrong" diatribes.

And something constructive doesn't start and end with "Israel has to do....."

there will be no peace. If you fail to see that then I really can't explain it any better to you

doesn't start and end with "Palestinians have to do..." either!

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I didn't mean my original "where do you live" post as a threat, nor do I think GabysPoppy meant his/her "where do you live" post as a threat.

I think we both hold have strong opinions and worded our posts that way to make our point.

This issue (I/P) tends to cause great passion on both sides and we all need thick skins to stay here and debate it.

:thumbsup:

You were not the one to say "until then" and it was not directed at you at all.

We both made our points in a similiar vein which in its entirety and simplicity amply describes the problem on hand. However the modus operandi here is a constant knee jerk reaction to either put points on the scoreboard or the equally inane ass kiss "great post" you see.

Some people unfortunately have a "need" to come to the rescue of a teammate. That may be considered great "team spirit" during a Friday night high school football game but here on I/P it just makes a sane person want to :puke:

I want to kick myself in the ass when I have done it in the past myself.

:yourock:

Sorry, just couldn't help myself.

The chicken or the egg....:shrug:

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

"I want to send over one of my kids and kill your wife and your baby."

Main Entry: 1threat
Pronunciation: 'thret
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English thret coercion, threat, from Old English thrEat coercion; akin to Middle High German drOz annoyance, Latin trudere to push, thrust
Date: before 12th century
1 : an expression of intention to inflict evil, injury, or damage
2 : one that threatens
3 : an indication of something impending <the sky held a threat of rain>

www.m-w.com

Do not post messages that advocate harm or death to anyone, threaten the livelihood of anyone, or otherwise harass anyone. Do not send email, snail mail, phone, fax, or other messages to anyone if your intent is to threaten or harass, and do not encourage others to do the same. Do not take your disagreements off the message board and into the "real world," and do not do anything to try to harm or harass any member of this message board in the "real world."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/forums/rules.html

Hard to believe you were a moderator.

is isn't it?

nevermind

When it comes to keeping yr mouth closed when asked a question about the topic of the thread which gives you an opportunity to engage in some constructive discussion, then keeping one's mouth closed is not such a great idea. So, noticing how you've managed to post in this thread heaps since I asked you some questions related to the topic of the thread, I'll ask again just in case you happened to not notice the questions...

Do you support the path the wall is taking?

How does constructing a wall that's going deep into Palestinian territory do anything to stop suicide-bombers that a wall going as close to the Green Line as possible couldn't?

Violet...

She was trying to illustrate a point. Leave it to the mods, and stop attacking people. Your self-righteousness is increasingly annoying. And by the way, we all read the rules.

who's talking...

She's a he. And seeing he hasn't answered my question about what the point was he was trying to make and what it had to do with the construction of the wall along the path it's taking, maybe you'll oblige me...


Violet...

"Leave it to the mods, and stop attacking people."

Followed by:

"Your self-righteousness is increasingly annoying."

Glad to be of service after only 67 posts. I must be slipping though.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

That is essentially what is happening in the territories.

I'll let Jim Sagle describe how great that analogy is.

The Palestinians are not.

I apologize for the strike-through text. I have no idea how that happened.

Anyway, I hope people can ignore that and read the article.

Thanks for posting it.

:hi:

Must factor in Arafat's acquisition of said funds for personal use, and for funding terrorist activity.

To get the Palestinians to accept peace, something has to be done. No peace, no life. Those are the alternatives they have.

On edit: Israel has the same alternatives, so there is no anti-Palestinian bias here.

Is the consequence of three years of warfare, warfare that was loosed voluntarily by the political and military leadership of Arab Palestine, for reasons that seemed good to them at the time. The reasons for active war that seemed so good to the political and military leadership of Arab Palestine then may well not seem so good today, as the consequences of the deed continue to play out. The destruction they have wrought to their people's well-being by their feckless judgement three years ago could well have been forseen by reasonable men, for it is in the very nature of war, particularly war on the losing side, and could readily have been avoided by maintaining the peace. Prior to this recent bout of active hostilities, the people of Arab Palestine were reasonably prosperous by local standards, and there seemed every prospect of their economic well-being continuing to improve.

This line was taken by the Iraq-war hawks was well. Disagreement with the said "something", whether it be the invasion of Iraq or the construction of this wall, is not a default argument for inaction - any attempt to make this claim is disingenious.