Israel's Self-Righteous Critics Remain Silent as Palestinians Kill "Collaborators"

[yaaqub ishaq]

Originally posted by Vic
...and the (in)famous passage:That's all there is to the story. Yet this is what Robert Fisk, apparently an experienced war reporter, makes of it, as published on the "Counterpunch" site you refer to:

fisk doesn't really betray the original article. he merely raises the irony between the that israeli officer's 'legitimising' of nazi tactics, and separate israeli tactics which may also be viewed as achieving the same.

The only point of interest to the military can be "classical" military action, a.k.a. "urban combat": it's much less about painting numbers on someone's arms (a procedure in German concentration camps, not in the ghettos - and the numbers were not painted but tattooed deep under the skin of the victims), but rather about how to take cover, scale walls, enter buildings, recognize traps, etc. when fighting against guerrilla groups.

again, that is clearly what the israeli officer meant, and fisk never misrepresented that.

And the Jewish fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto were amazingly efficient for their small numbers, poor physical conditions and nearly total lack of arms (which definitely cannot be said of the Palestinians). As such they certainly qualify for the title of one of the most creative urban guerrilla groups the world has ever seen. Here is an account by one of the few survivors of the Warsaw uprising: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilre...-uprising.html.

interesting article that. i honestly think the courage shown by those jewish resistance members is amazing.

I hope you are not too disappointed

not at all. i only brought it up in response to the original tying in of the plo to the kgb, to show how meaningless and misleading that sort of argument can be.

[yaaqub ishaq]

Originally posted by 5-alef

How many palestinians died as a result of bulldozing their houses?
only in two cases Palestinian armed terrorist didnt give up and had the house bulldozed on theri heads.
ALL were given chance to get out and surrender. Most of them took it. period.

i saw an interview with IDF servicemen on television which discussed this. they admitted that they didn't really know who was inside which houses. they would knock, yell out, and if the occupants were too scared to come out, they were buried.

it doesn't seem to have happened in many circumstances, however to say that the IDF ensured that was the case would be stretching the truth a long way.

some people clearly did not want to come out of their houses, for the same reason the IDF didn't want to go inside and collect them.

here is a good article explaining just a couple of the gross misconducts committed by both sides in jenin.

the use of human shields by the IDF (and palestinian militants to a degree) is an inhumane and indefensive tactic. no one can take pride in an army that uses these illegal and just downright wrong methods.

[danholo]

Originally posted by yaaqub ishaq
the use of human shields by the IDF (and palestinian militants to a degree) is an inhumane and indefensive tactic. no one can take pride in an army that uses these illegal and just downright wrong methods.

Yes, the "neighbor" tactic used by the IDF is totally un-Jewish and "downright wrong"

"and palestinian militants to a degree"

To a degree?!

They're on par or even worse then the IDF.
They are hiding in the middle of residential areas, building bombs that have gone off by accident.
They hide behind they're children to use them as shields.
At least you could say the methods are "as bad". But not to "a degree".

[Mediocrates]

Hmmmmm

Debating the niceness of war. Ok. Isn't that productive. Let's see; the Iraqis use phosgene and sarin, the Saudis got the Egyptian army to use chemical and bio agents. The Syians, well they used conventional weapons to kill 30,000 of their own, the Taleban used to like to pull people apart between 2 jeeps...

so humane, so nice.

[Vic]

Originally posted by yaaqub ishaq
fisk doesn't really betray the original article. he merely raises the irony between the that israeli officer's 'legitimising' of nazi tactics, and separate israeli tactics which may also be viewed as achieving the same.

again, that is clearly what the israeli officer meant, and fisk never misrepresented that. interesting article that. i honestly think the courage shown by those jewish resistance members is amazing. not at all. i only brought it up in response to the original tying in of the plo to the kgb, to show how meaningless and misleading that sort of argument can be.

The mention of KGB is neither meaningless nor misleading, and it has an entirely different character. I have missed parts of the original discussion, so here it goes:

Posted by rhodescholar on 08-27-2002
People who are either not smart, with short memories, or with an agenda and an unwillingess to accept the facts try to gloss over the period from 1968 - 1982, when Arafat and his KGB-trained thugs tried insurgencies oin Syria, Lebanon and Syria, killing thousands. For all the mindless arab supporters who feel a need to support him, including the scum of the earth like adam shapiro who will hopefully enjoy a painful end somewhere somehow, need to read this book.

Posted by yaaqub ishaq on 08-29-2002

The PLO had opened a terrorist state within a state, basically destroying any chances lebanon had for a standing cease-fire.

hmm.. i'm not defending the tactics of the PLO. i only defend the fight for ordinary palestinians for restoration of their human rights. yes ,the PLO shares a (significant) degree of responsibility for the palestinians' plight, as does israel.

Arafat had gone to lebanon, in case you forgot that too, when he was expelled from Syria for doing the same thing, insurging a nation through violence and wanton murder of civilians using terrorist tactics learned from the KGB.

i can do you one better than the KGB. what do you think of this, in reference to IDF tactics used in the jenin refugee camp raid:

Asked by EIR on Jan. 30 about IDF officers studying the Nazi Warsaw Ghetto strategy, Gissen replied, "Some officers may have been looking at that. They thought that it was similar, because you would be fighting street-by-street against the Palestinian Authority."

The first and most obvious difference between the PLO/KGB and Israel/Nazi comparison are the hard historical facts. The Soviet Union, as represented mostly by the KGB in the region, did indeed strongly support Palestinian terrorism. It offered arms, money, training, not to mention the overall political support. What "rhodescholar" writes about is a sound historical fact, the IDF/Nazi affair fiction, since, for one thing there has never been any even remotely comparable physical connection. Again, the only thing the Israelis actually ever referred to were the tactics of street fighting against a guerrilla group - nothing to get cooked up about.

And, as a former Soviet citizen, I can vouch for the fact that Arafat's rule runs largely along the lines of a totalitarian dictatorship, which was the political program of the KGB and related institutions as well, implemented with particular "success" during the peroid of Stalinist terror. Indeed, many of the things that one hears of from the Palestinian territories, such as executing innoncents for "collaboration" (known as "enemies of the people" under Stalin's rule), postulating hate for the other side of the conflict as the glue that holds the society together, etc., are all too painfully familiar to me. Note that many Palestinians also underwent full ideological training in the fmr. USSR. I can still discern the characteristic ring of Soviet propaganda in their original prononcements. The statement "the PLO has installed KGB-style rule over the people it controls" would therefore be well justified.

The second one, the reason why your flippant "i can do you one better than the KGB" is quite offensive, is the semantics. "Nazi methods", as Fisk and Finkelstein know, and I guess you do so too, are commonly associated with meticiously planned and effciently executed mass extermination of humans, a.k.a. genocide. Writing a number on someone's arm may not be a nice thing to do, but the person can wash it off afterwards, and be none the worse for it. Were Palestinians really subjected to Nazi methods (my "favorite" is that they are being treated "worse" than the Jews were treated by the Nazis), some 99% of them would have already ended as a heap of ashes. There is little irony to be found in this, at most it demostrates the perversity of Fisk's thinking ("Pardon? What on earth does this mean? Does this account for the numbers marked by the Israelis on the hands and foreheads of Palestinian prisoners earlier this month? Does this mean that an Israeli soldier is now to regard the Palestinians as sub-humans - which is exactly how the Nazis regarded the trapped and desperate Jews of the Warsaw ghetto in 1944?"- maybe he isn't misrepresenting in the narrow sense, but he is certainly misenterpreting quite a lot.) This is why your comment "he merely raises the irony between the that israeli officer's 'legitimising' of nazi tactics, and separate israeli tactics which may also be viewed as achieving the same" is outrageous. What the Nazis "achieved" is common knowledge.

Off-topic, but sometimes I wonder whether there are Palestinians who are sickned by their friends and advocates: do they seriously want them to end up like the Jews did in the Third Reich, just for the sake of bombastic rhetoric and cheap pokes?

When you write,

Posted by yaaqub ishaq on 08-30-2002
it's not really a surprising comment, given the known IDF tactics and their disturbing similarities to nazi tactics in warsaw

I cannot help wondering whether you realize that the "known IDF tactics" (known to whom, one may ask? to Robert Fisk and Norman Finkelstein?) and "disturbing similarities" are mostly a fiction, brought into discussion for the sake of causing maximum offense and injury, not in order to clarify the situation. The comment by Finkestein you cite is quite typical for this... how should I call it? sadism?.. I can only refer you to "5-alef's" post. Most of Finkelstein's claims are either outright lies or references to common mass arrest procedures applied in many countries under similar or even much easier conditions.

We have had several discussions on the popular Israel/Nazi comparisons on this board, take a look at them.

[yaaqub ishaq]

Originally posted by Vic
The second one, the reason why your flippant "i can do you one better than the KGB" is quite offensive, is the semantics.

once again, i am no fan of arafat. however that doesn't mean i will join in with the one sided demonisation in this forum of everything that has been touched by the PLO.

your objection to my connecting IDF and nazi tactics is of course legitimate. however you are missing the point somewhat: it was meant to show how equating arafat with the KGB is also illegitimate. not because there is no connection, or because arafat is always in the right, but because it is unnecessary.

arafat's crimes should be judged on their own merit, not by equating them with someone else's. if you need to do that in the first place, you're obviously lacking in your ability to pin evidence on arafat himself, as i see it.

Off-topic, but sometimes I wonder whether there are Palestinians who are sickned by their friends and advocates: do they seriously want them to end up like the Jews did in the Third Reich, just for the sake of bombastic rhetoric and cheap pokes?

look i'm sorry but when i see the IDF's tactics, i am reminded of nazi tactics in some ways. i recognise that israel is far more humane than the nazis ever were, and i'm not equating them with nazism in any way.

however the sweeps through palestinian refugee camps had some of the hallmarks of nazism: and i'm referring to the inhumane treatment of palestinian refugees. using palestinians as human shields is just atrocious. stripping them and using their own clothes as blindfolds and other acts is merely causing suffering on the israeli side, as a result of unnecessary provocation.

you mention that writing a number on someone's arm will wash off. you are missing the point: as are many pro-israelis. the point is that IDF treatment of palestinians, well documented in many reports, removes their dignity.

you may not view this as a crime, or even as important, but it is human nature to want for revenge in these circumstances. i don't condone suicide bombers. but once you've finished condeming them, you are left with the question of preventing them. and unlike many here, i believe that question is best asked of both sides.

the similarities is see between IDF tactics and nazism are the portrayal - whether this is intentional or not - of palestinians as lesser beings.

this is what brought international condemnation of south africa and its segregationist policies. not because it was a murderous state such as rwanda in the 90s for example. it is a reduction of human dignity that is what outrages people and has drawn so much criticism to israel. it is also what fuels palestinian terrorism.

when i drew the nazi-israel comparison, yes i was being provocative and it obviously worked. but i didn't mean it as a cheap shot - i meant in part to try to communicate how powerful simple gestures or statements that subtract from someone's dignity can be, and the reactions they can sometimes invoke.

now let me pre-empt martin or whoever else will predictably call me an apologist for palestinian terror - i am not. it's just important to recognise that both sides have a responsibility here.

[Mediocrates]

Ruth Matar's Women in Green Hour on
Arutz Sheva English Radio
August 28,2002

IS THERE ANY REAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ISRAELI ARABS AND ARABS
UNDER THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY?

Our Israeli government makes me think of the saying, "None are as blind as
those who refuse to see!"

Last week we discussed the "Gaza-Bethlehem First" plan as being simply a
new version of the disastrous Oslo Agreements, agreements which have cost
the lives of hundreds of Jews and have resulted in tens of thousands of
wounded and maimed. It is shocking to learn that when Defense Secretary
Ben Eliezer and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres announced their
Gaza-Bethlehem First plan on August 18, they knew (but didn't share this
knowledge with the Israeli public) that the day before, the Israeli
Security Services had apprehended a terrorist cell of Israeli Arabs working
together with Arabs from Ramallah. The members of this terrorist cell
admitted to complicity in executing eight separate devastating attacks in
the last three months, in which thirty-five Israelis died and dozens were
gravely wounded in different parts of the country.

|In addition, before making this agreement with the Palestinian Authority, did Ben
Eliezer, Peres and Sharon take into account the terrorist attack at the
Merom Junction where nine were killed and 48 wounded? Seven members of the
same Israeli Arab family were cooperating with the Palestinian terrorists,
according to today's Jerusalem Post in the article entitled, "Israeli Arab
Terrorism on the Rise".

In both these terror attacks, Israeli Arabs were collaborating with Arabs
from areas controlled by Arafat's Palestinian Authority.

In this regard, let us review statements of Sharon's spokesperson, Ra'anan Gissin, Shimon
Peres and Ben Eliezer.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's spokesperson, Ra'anan Gissin, said that
Palestinian terrorist groups "are trying to recruit Israeli Arabs to
participate actively in terrorist activity", but that the vast majority of
Arab citizens are not engaged in terrorism. So how come the last two major
terror attacks were a cooperative venture between terrorists from
Arafat-controlled territory and Israeli Arabs?

Mr. Peres, in an interview in Norway, as usual justifying his "New Middle
East" pipe dream, states that he still feels that Arafat is entitled to the
Nobel Prize, since he was the first Arab to renounce violence!

In the face of increasing terror attacks, our Minister of Defense Ben
Eliezer says: "I have complete faith that the Palestinians are sincerely
intent on achieving peace. It is clear to me that the Palestinian
leadership has done some serious soul searching."
He not only avoids speaking of victory, but repeatedly asserts that there
is no military solution to the current conflict. His refusal to see
reality, or maybe it is wishful thinking, is evident in his statement that
Israel must take advantage of the "new wind that is blowing among
Palestinians" by withdrawing systematically from Gaza, Hebron, and Judea
and Samaria.

There is indeed a new wind blowing. It is the ill wind of sedition and
terrorism among Israel's Arab citizens. Sharon, Peres and Ben Eliezer
refuse to acknowledge these dangerous developments. In truth: "None are as
blind as those who refuse to see!"

There is one man who is not afraid to tell the truth, Chief of General
Staff, Lt. General Moshe Ayalon. Last Sunday, August 25, he spoke to the
Annual Convention of Rabbis in Jerusalem. He asked the reporters to leave
the room before speaking, but a recording was secretly made by someone in
the audience. Chief of Staff Moshe Ayalon, the head of the Israeli Defense
Forces, pointed out the following at this meeting:
The PLO has never sought anything besides Israel's destruction, and is
still trying to implement its "plan of stages" to annihilate Israel.

The goal of the current Palestinian leadership is not a "two-state
solution", but a Palestinian State as a stepping-stone toward the
elimination of Israel as a Jewish State.

The capitulation by Ehud Barak to Syria and Lebanon was a fiasco that led
to escalated violence and terror by the Palestinians; that the capitulation
in Lebanon signaled to the Arabs that Israel is destructible.

Syrian leader Bashir Assad was encouraged by Hizbullah's success and the
Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, but Assad recognizes Israel's clear
superiority, which is why he is reluctant to put his army to the test.

Iran, after the Khomeini revolution of 1979, is a state which openly
advocates the destruction of Israel. The Iranians are also acting to
support Palestinian terrorist organizations wherever they are--Hamas,
Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front, and even the Palestinian Authority
itself. The episode of the Karine A weapons smuggling ship reflected
Iran's policy of supporting anybody that could speed Israel's demise.

Israel is much better prepared to meet any Iraqi threat today than during
the Gulf War, both in terms of striking at Iraq and in dealing with any
missile threat. Iraq does not pose an existential threat to the State of
Israel. "In the long term, the threat posed by Iraq or Hizbullah doesn't
make me lose sleep. What does cost me sleep are two things: first, the
prospect of a hostile country attaining nuclear capability and altering the
strategic balance; and, second the Palestinian issue."

There is no way of coming to an understanding with the present Palestinian
leadership; to show any weakness in this regard would put Israel into a
tailspin.

The outbreak of PLO atrocities is a direct result of Israel demonstrating
weakness and defeatism. As a military man, I tell you this is a conflict
Israel must win so the Palestinians will understand they cannot gain
through terror.

Palestinian violence threatens to contaminate and infect Israeli Arabs, and
the failure to suppress Palestinian terror is leading to the radicalization
of Israeli Arabs, and they're enlisting in terrorism.

This is exactly what our topic tonight is about:

IS THERE ANY REAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ISRAELI ARABS AND ARABS UNDER THE
PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY?

Our guests tonight are Member of the Israeli Knesset Michael Kleiner and
Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director of IMRA, (Independent Media Review and Analysis).

These interviews can be accessed at:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/metafiles/asx/wig.asx

It is refreshing and encouraging to finally hear one of our leaders tell us
the truth.

Prime Minister Sharon: Don't close your eyes to the fact that Israeli
terrorism is on the rise. Don't close your eyes to the fact that PLO
atrocities are a direct result of Israel continually demonstrating weakness
and defeatism.

Shimon Peres: Stop living in your "New Middle East" fantasyland. Stop
pretending that Yasser Arafat has renounced violence and is a valid peace
partner for Israel.

Mr. Ben Eliezer: There is no way of coming to an understanding with the present
Palestinian leadership. Mr. Ben Eliezer, there is a military solution if
Israel wants to survive. If you don't think there is a military solution,
why are you remaining Israel's Defense Minister?

The fact that our leaders pretend to be blind and refuse to see reality can
have disastrous consequences for Israel.

In the words of Chief of Staff Moshe Ayalon: "There is no way of coming to
an understanding with the present Palestinian leadership. As a military
man, I tell you this is a conflict we must win so the Palestinians will
understand they cannot gain through terror."

Chief of Staff Moshe Ayalon's remarks may hopefully cure Mr. Sharon, Mr.
Peres and Mr. Ben Eliezer of their ostrich-like behavior, which is to put
your head in the sand and pretend there is no problem, and then the problem will
go away.

=============================================
Women For Israel's Tomorrow (Women in Green)
POB 7352, Jerusalem 91072, Israel
Tel: 972-2-624-9887 Fax: 972-2-624-5380
mailto:michaele@netvision.net.il
http://www.womeningreen.org
To contribute financially: http://www.interdays.net/women-in-green


To subscribe to the Women In Green list,
please send a blank email message to:
list4-subscribe@womeningreen.org

To unsubscribe from the Women In Green list,
please send a blank email message to:
list4-unsubscribe@womeningreen.org

[yaaqub ishaq]

Originally posted by danholo


Yes, the "neighbor" tactic used by the IDF is totally un-Jewish and "downright wrong"

"and palestinian militants to a degree"

To a degree?!

They're on par or even worse then the IDF.
They are hiding in the middle of residential areas, building bombs that have gone off by accident.
They hide behind they're children to use them as shields.
At least you could say the methods are "as bad". But not to "a degree".

ok they're as bad.

but they are different. a palestinian militant hiding in a residential neighbourhood may (often incorrectly) believe that he will not be found. he still has no right to take the risk.

a soldier who grabs a civilian and forces them to knock on a militant's door only to see her be riddled with bullets had a pretty good idea what would happen.

but they're just as bad, you're right. both end up with innocents being killed.

[Mediocrates]

Assuming of course there are innocents. Kill my children, reap the wind. Does that crystallize it for you?

[yaaqub ishaq]

Originally posted by Mediocrates
Assuming of course there are innocents. Kill my children, reap the wind. Does that crystallize it for you?

it's always possible a militant's neighbour is also a militant. of course it's also possible that if you walk into your neighbours house in the US and shoot them dead, they also were guilty of something.

and no, i'm not familiar with the phrase.

[Mediocrates]

It's not a phrase, I just wrote it myself. You think too much. Barbarity is it's own reward.

[Vic]

Mediocrates, I must admit that I'm a bit uncomfortable about the "Women in Green". They are, well, a touch too militant and maybe too narrow-minded for my taste.



Yaaqub Ishaq, all I can say is that you disappoint me. Statements like

Originally posted by yaaqub ishaq
however that doesn't mean i will join in with the one sided demonisation in this forum of everything that has been touched by the PLO

are not exactly the trademark of serious debate, which was what I thought at first you were seeking on this board.

As for

however you are missing the point somewhat: it was meant to show how equating arafat with the KGB is also illegitimate. not because there is no connection, or because arafat is always in the right, but because it is unnecessary.

arafat's crimes should be judged on their own merit, not by equating them with someone else's. if you need to do that in the first place, you're obviously lacking in your ability to pin evidence on arafat himself, as i see it.

- oh yes, I can do it damn well: I don't see, however, any necessity in denying historical facts, however disquieting they may be. Why don't you read more of the posts in this forum for a change?

Re. the psychological side: I am, of course, aware that the Israeli operations are traumatizing for the Palestinians. However, this can be said of any military and police activity. Have you ever heard of mass arrests and interrogations that the arrested have percieved as pure pleasure? Any arrest removes the arrested person's dignity to some degree, even more so under the harsh conditions of a conflict like this. The point worth of discussion is whether the Israelis are systematically crossing the threshold of unavoidable necessity, and whether their mindsets are what people like Robert Fisk hint they might be. I submit that this is an absolutely over-reported conflict, most people who judge it by media reports have no frame of comparison. The pictures can look genuinely shocking to a Western media consumer b/c s/he has never experienced anything even remotely similar in his/her neighborhood. Ask many people from the fmr. USSR or Yugoslavia, from the Kurdish-dominated territories in Turkey or areas of constant conflict in Indonesia, and they will more often than not shrug it off: they have seen much worse, with the rest of the world not giving a damn about it, let alone "feel reminded of Nazism" (the only exception seems to be Yugoslavia, where one can speak of genocide in some instances with serious justification, but even here the world action was much too late and much too limited to certain parties only).

The "humiliation causes/fuels terrorism" theory is dubious on many counts. It has been discussed several times on this board, I don't care to repeat it all over.

the similarities is see between IDF tactics and nazism are the portrayal - whether this is intentional or not - of palestinians as lesser beings.

Who on the earth portrays Palestinians as lesser human beings beyond the heated rhetoric you'd normally expect in a situation like this???

when i drew the nazi-israel comparison, yes i was being provocative and it obviously worked. but i didn't mean it as a cheap shot - i meant in part to try to communicate how powerful simple gestures or statements that subtract from someone's dignity can be, and the reactions they can sometimes invoke.

Sorry, but this is exactly what it was: a cheap shot, and a highly popular one at that. As you write yourself, you have to understand the other side, in this case, your intended audience...

[Vic]

Back to the subject -

Ex-Soviet dissident tries to save accused Palestinian spy
By The Associated Press
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pa...ubContrassID=0

Former Soviet dissident Ida Nudel, who survived four years of Siberian exile and waged a 16-year fight to reach Israel, embarked Wednesday on a new struggle - to save a Palestinian accused of spying for Israel from execution by Palestinian authorities.

Nudel on Wednesday urged the Vatican's representative to the Holy Land, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, to intervene in the Palestinian man's case. "He didn't say yes and he didn't say no," Nudel said in Russian-accented Hebrew as she left the Vatican's offices on the Mount of Olives.

[...]