Sam Harris on the Israel-Palestine Conflict

jank wrote: »

Our own war of independence was directed at the British establishment and military based in Ireland. If Collins and co. ordered young Irish men to strap dynamite to themselves, walk into a bustling London Restaurant and blow themselves up as a sort of pseudo religious blood sacrifice I and many others would be appalled at such an action and you would quickly find sympathy to the Irish cause disappear fast.

You're not seriously saying that the Irish War of Independence didn't result in civilian casualties do you? I realise it's very difficult to number the dead in this conflict but found this page here which puts the number as high as 61.

Of course you might argue that the civilian casualties were not deliberate, although the subsequent campaign by the IRA certainly did - their point, to which I do sympathise to an extent was that every British person in Ireland was there unjustly and illegally.

When visiting the Facebook page for the Irish Socialist Party, there's been a lot of posters on there targeting Americans, asking how they would feel if someone invaded their country and gradually usurped their land and way of life - when speaking to Irish people, there's no need for you to imagine, it actually happened.

To cut a long story short, we also know that your war came as the result of decades of trying to negotiate a peaceful secession from the United Kingdom. War was the last resort and it would have been obvious to both sides that there would be civilian casualties.

It beggars belief that any Israeli occupying Palestine today is unaware of the risks involved in staying there. Also while the feeble rocket attacks by Hamas have not been very effective in killing innocent people, Israel has been much more capable at massacring civilians just to prove their dominance.

This is what Hamas and Fatah to some extent preach and brain wash into young children from the day they are born. One would think in an A&A forum this action would be described for what it is. People in power exploiting young vulnerable men and women to further their own aims through dogma and doctrine via some holy text and scripture.

You won't find any argument from me if you want to say religion is a useful tool to gain conscripts. It doesn't automatically follow however that the only basis on which the Palestinian people have a claim to their land is religious, nor that they aren't entitled to repel an occupying power, as the Irish did.

Regardless, I will repeat. Firing rockets indiscriminately into civilian population centers and sending young people to blow themselves up in buses and cafes is NOT legal under international law as claimed, so lets just nip that one in the bud first and foremost.

I'm impressed by your regard for the law. Of course the Israeli occupation of the West Bank has been ruled illegal too. Support from the US and other countries has allowed Israel to flout the law - once again it seems a double standard is being applied.

The question of the original settlement of Palestine was also in violation of international law but no one seems to get too upset over this - indeed whenever someone criticises it there seems to be some irritation that the Palestinians won't allow their country to be partitioned.

Also to go back to the analogy of the Irish War of Independence -had that been ruled illegal by the League of Nations because someone had decided the number of civilian casualties was too high, would that then automatically have made the cause in which they were fighting unjust?

And yes, the IDF are trigger happy, I do not agree with settlements or the occupation but I failed to see the situation being helped by the above terrorist actions when they have failed for decades and achieved nothing but death and the cult of martyrdom.

Again I'll refer you to your own War of Independence - violent insurrection may have been a last resort but it was what allows you know to sit in front of your desk sipping an espresso with a copy of the Constitution on the wall and use your civil rights to criticise the methods used by others to win theirs.

Turtwig wrote: »

The really funny thing about this conflict is that it's still in Israel's interest to ensure Hamas remain powerful enough to be the dominant force just not powerful enough to actually seriously hurt Israel.

Of course. Who do you think created Hamas in the first place? Just like with the CIA and Al-Qaeda, Mossad's love child with a half blind extremist is now something which is a danger to Israeli goals of domination over the Palestinians and their eventual expulsion to create an "empty land" for the settlers to move into "Greater Israel".

Sam Harris goes into detail about the tactic of Muslims firing rifles over the shoulders of their own civilians, and how effective this is at stopping the IDF from returning fire, and how ridiculous it would be for IDF to adopt the same tactic. Yet there seems to be no evidence of this actually happening?
Its odd that he elaborates so much on what seems to be a strawman argument.

What if Israel itself was a terrorist regime, which had cultivated for itself a veneer of western style respectability over the years. Consider the facts;
It all began with classic terrorist attacks, such as the King David Hotel bombing which were perpetrated against the (then) British administration. The terrorist leader was Menachim Begin, a future PM of Israel. These terrorists were religious fanatics; the worst kind

The British eventually announced their intention to pull out of Palestine, and set the date for May of 1948.

In the three months leading up to that, the terrorists set about the ethnic cleansing of the country, so that they would be in a position to start off a new zionist theocracy with "a clean slate" as it were. Whole villages were cleared of their Arab populations. On the day the British left, the jewish state of Israel was announced.
Everything that has happened since then results from those actions, and follows on in the same vein. Occasionally the Arabs have tried to fight back, but they always lose. They have become so angry that they probably would annihilate Israel if they could.

We will never know what would have happened if moderate jews and arabs had tried to set up a secular state together, because the terrorists successfully pre-empted that possibility with a violent takeover, and have maintained their zionist state ever since.

Azwaldo55 wrote: »

Harris is 100% (.......)Waco.

Silly OTT guff.

Azwaldo55 wrote: »

Harris is 100% correct.

Supposing a lunatic walked into a shopping mall with a baby strapped to his body and he started spraying people left and right with bullets? When the cops turned up they might have to open fire on him to save others and in the process kill the baby.

That is what we are talking about here....

Eh.. no its not. You're just making that up. That never happened.
Although, it seems Harris's example never happened either, so you have that in common with him.

kylith wrote: »

Now, I don't much follow the news so let me see if I've gotten this straight:

A large portion of Palestine was given by Britain (and probably others) to the Jewish people after WW2.

Not quite, the British just left Palestine to the locals, both jews and arabs.
Zionists seized the bulk of the country and called it the jewish state of Israel.
Gaza, West bank etc.. are the small bits left to the arab population, which was originally in the majority.
Eventually it will all have to be restored to a single unitary State of Palestine, and they will all have to learn to get along with each other. There will be a lot of "truth and reconciliation" to be done. A two state solution is not possible or sustainable, just as it would not have been in South Africa.

Nodin wrote: »

Even odder when you consider that it was Israeli policy (officially and openly) to use Palestinians in such a manner for many years. The B'tselem web site is down at the moment, but it has extensive reports of it being carried out, both before the high court ruling banning it and after.

Harris has always talked through his arse on this issue over the years, and is selective with his use of the facts.

Right - B'tselem back up. Appears it was hacked, for some reason.

"On 6 October 2005, Israel's High Court of Justice ruled that it was illegal for the army to use Palestinian civilians during military actions. The court ruled on a petition submitted by Adalah in the name of B'Tselem and six other human rights organizations in 2002. The petition followed the army's use of Palestinian civilians as human shields since the beginning of the second intifada, primarily during operations carried out in densely populated Palestinian areas, as occurred in Operation Defensive Shield.
The method was the same each time: soldiers picked a civilian at random and forced him to protect them with his body, and do dangerous tasks for them. For example, soldiers have ordered Palestinians to:

• enter buildings to check if they are booby-trapped, or to remove the occupants;
• remove suspicious objects from roads;
• stand inside houses where soldiers set up military positions, so that Palestinians would not fire at them;
• and walk in front of soldiers to shield them from gunfire, while the soldiers point a gun to their backs and sometimes fire over their shoulders."

http://www.btselem.org/human_shields

jank wrote: »

Hamas have no hope of winning this war as a military conflict. That is much is clear to anyone with half a brain, yet people still say "sure what else can they do". Maybe stop firing almost 3000 rockets indiscriminately into Israeli population centers. Instead of using Gaza as a launchpad for rockets and concrete for tunnels being dug into Israel proper why not actively help the people they are supposed to rule? Drop the genocidal nature of their politics, drop the cult of martyrdom. Israel have won almost every military engagement with Arab and terrorist forces for over 60 years. This is the outcome of these victories. It may seem harsh, unfair but that is the way things are. Sue for permanent peace and concentrate on bettering your peoples lot rather then fighting a conflict you have zero chance of winning.

Lets put it this way. Are the few dissident republicans right to continue to fight the occupation of NI by the British even though they have no hope of winning the conflict on military terms?

As has been pointed out, Fatah have done this, and received nothing but more settlers for their efforts.

Akrasia wrote: »

I don't take the side of Hamas against Israel. I take the side of the children of Palestine and the children of Israel, neither of whome have any hope of a peaceful future if the extremists on both sides don't back off and quit killing each other.

Extremism breeds extremism. The extremist conditions in Gaza and the west bank make the emergence of fundamentalist extremists inevitable and drown out the voices of moderates and non violent peace activists.

And amidst the open prison and the siege conditions, we have the additional confounding factor of the settler movement and the many Likud party members who are just as open about their desires to fully annex palestine as Hamas are about wiping out Israel.

Israel are the powerful side in this conflict, they are ultimately responsible for the conditions in the lands they are occupying. I refuse to simply give up on the 4 million palestinian people and say that they are beyond reason and would not respond to humane treatment.

The seeds of extremism are already planted on both sides and we are possibly already doomed to losing the current generation to hatred and despair, but if there is to ever be justice in the middle east, Israel needs to create the conditions where the people of palestine have reason to trust Israel and a reason to move away from their extremist islamic leaders. This requires proactive moves towards peace and reconciliation

Well written..

jank wrote: »

Would you care to address the key point I made, that Hamas would if they could commit genocide against the Jews and Israel? Do you agree that they are religious fanatics who have perpetuated a cult of martyrdom inside the Gaza strip? Do you agree that they are terrorists?

The moral bankruptcy of the "they would if they could" argument is that of a petulant child. Particularly as you are transferring Hamas' statements on to all Palestinians.

There are ISIS cells in the UK. ISIS are a subset of the Muslim population. Should we bomb, arrest or deport the UK Muslim population?

jank wrote: »

I have been on record on being against the settlement of the west bank, yet you seem to think the only solution to stop this is the attempted murder of Jews. As if one justifies the other. This type of appeasement sometimes facinates me. Is Neville Chamberlain your hero?.

Where did I sanction the murder of "Jews"?

jank wrote: »

Regardless of this are residents of the west bank better off than those of Gaza? The answer would be yes, therefore it is logical and rational that to launch a futile war against Israel is nonsensical from both a military and political point of view.

No, it would not be "yes".