From: malgosia askanas (email suppressed)
Date: Sun Jan 11 2009 - 10:53:31 PST
Well, I may agree Frameworks may not be the place for political
debate - but for long as others continue the debate with provocative
posts directed at me, it's a bit of a stretch to expect me not to
respond. Sorry, James Cole.
Eli Horwatt wrote:
>It seems very strange that this conversation initiated from the
>rather neutral call for images from Gaza to be recorded.
The call was not really "neutral" - very few such thing are.
>Most of the time, I think Zionists become angry amidst legitimate
>critiques of Israel because they presume that critics either a)
>believe the country shouldn't exist or b) believe that Palestinians
>have the right to violently resist the occupation through the
>killing of civilians. Is it possible for you, Malgosia to accept
>that someone may not support either of these positions AND YET still
>critique Israel?
Ah, another little handful of insinuations. First, I am not a
zionist - unless by "zionist" you mean any person who thinks that the
Jews have just as much of a right to a state of their own as any
other people who want a state of their own. And no, I do not
subscribe to your (a)-(b) disjunction. And I have no quarrel with
intelligent, thoughful, informed critiques of Israel, may of whose
policies and actions I deeply disagree with. But I sure haven't seen
any such critiques in this "debate".
>Everyone know Hamas is a violent terrorist organization launching
>rockets from schools and civilian domiciles; i doubt anyone here
>condones that. BUT, you are effectively stating that it is sad, but
>civillians are justifiably killed when Hamas launches rockets from
>these areas. I think this is ethically short sighted. As a
>democratic state that all people should demand act responsibly in
>times of war, it is INDEFENSIBLE for attacks to occur against
>schools. What should the army do? They should send in ground forces.
>I know that this is difficult and may at times be ineffective; but
>you know what? Too Fucking Bad. No matter who is using a school
>rocket attacks (which is more than a provocation, but Hamas' means
>of winning the P.R. battle against Israel by causing more
>Palestinian civilian deaths) Israel cannot justify shelling schools.
>Doing so implicitly suggests that the civilians are complicit (which
>is obviously not always true) or that Hamas is somehow directly
>responsible (which is absurd).
Eli, this is a ridiculous argument. It implies that Israel, because
it is a democratic state, has a stronger obligation to protect
Palestinian civilians than Hamas does. Another appeal to bad
conscience and Christian guilt. No, to the contrary: if Hamas cares
for the Palestinian civilians, then it should not endanger them
needlessly by launching rockets from schools and civilian domiciles.
Too Fucking Bad.
-m
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