A Day In The Life Sderot
To all those in the left and the MSM that keep claiming that the thousands of rockets flying into Sderot are nothing but a nuisance, like mosquitoes. To all those claiming that these rockets do no harm. Let's see if you can live with this every-day. Any person or country that says that Israel has no right to protect its citizens and sovereignty from daily rocket attacks are complete liars and hypocrites.
Technorati Tags: Sderot, Gaza, Kassam, Israel, Rocket
Technorati Tags: Sderot, Gaza, Kassam, Israel, Rocket
posted by Olah Chadasha @ 11/19/2006 09:34:00 PM
Read Me By E-Mail
10 Comments:
Oleh,
Please repost your response on my blog. It did not go through the first time.
You're right to point out that these rocket attacks are significant and deadly, but you miss their lesson.
These are deadly attacks provoked by desperation. Desparation is a state that has been imposed on the Palestinian people by the State of Israel. Palestinians have no franchize for expression or inclusion, so Israel, in effect, leaves them little choice but to either suffer in silence, or to act out in hostile or maliciously violent ways. To a desperate person whose mind is warped by occupation, disenfranchisement, and misery, the latter can appear quite reasonable.
Behemoth, your answer couldn't be more rhetorical if you were reading off of a point sheet. Your little speech lacks one major thing: FACTS. Let's go through this one more time:
1) Israel LEFT Gaza over a year ago. Less than ONE DAY after leaving, rockets began flying into Israeli territory.
The more you keep trying to pretend these are all acts of "desperation", the more it shows your complete lack of knowledge about the facts on the ground. Terrorism is NOT committed by desperate impoverished and uneducated people. They are committed by the upper middle to higher classes and by people with decent to substantial higher educations. Furthermore, Gaza is NOT occupied. And, to say that they're fighting for the West Bank, then, would be completely illogical and, again, contradict their own statements. This is NOT a cycle of violence. Israel has completely left Gaza. Terrorists, completely unprovoked, made the choice to continue its war against ISRAEL. This is not about land or occupation. This is about the people living in the land that they want is theirs. This is about their own internal struggle for power.
You and your ilk can continue your psycho-babble garbage about acts of desperation and occupation, but it's completely wrong. It's also an extremely lame attempt at justifying the unjustifiable. If some-one held a gun to your head, and put a bullet in you for some money to buy drugs, would you excuse his actions by saying "Well, it's an act of desperation. The guy's a junkie. He became an addict because he had a bad child-hood. I can't begrudge his choice to rob and shoot me. The guy needed to score." You are NOT enlightened, nor can you call yourself civilized when you refuse to hold people accountable and personally responsible for their actions. You're not doing the Palestinians a favor, either.
-OC
Why, then, in court is it a legitimate defense to say that society corrupted a person because of a bad youth? Why did the lawyer of the Israeli who just recently shot 4 Palestinian factory-workers argue that he did it "because he felt the need to protect Israel?"
In America, the appeal to socialization is a perfectly viable way to reduce the harshness of someone's sentence.
Yes the circumstances of one's upbringing do not excuse immorality and ignorance. But they are significant in determining the extent to which the individual is culpable. A palestinian who shoots a rocket or a gun is immoral.
But how much more immoral is the society that created his need, or want?
Israel does not exist in a vacuum. Your lifestyle on the French Hill comes at the expense of a Palestinian's lifestyle. It is folly to think that a giant open-air prison with all exits and entrances and access to shipping and mailing and customs controlled de facto by the IDF is a place of "freedom" for them.
Legitimate doesn't equal valid. It's a "legitimate" defense to say that a guy committed multiple rapes and homicides because mommy didn't show them enough love when they were young, but it doesn't equal justification, and it's up to a jury to decide it's validity. That's the folly and beauty of a democratic justice system. Your statement doesn't equal an argument. You can say whatever you want to defend people who do horrific things, it doesn't make it valid or correct. You can also try to bring in Palestinian AND Israeli arguments for doing bad things, and then justifying the means to the end, but it doesn't make them right. What? You think that just because I'm a Jew and Israel that I'd argue that the Israeli's argument is valid, simply because he's Israel, and you happen to think that I think that Palestinian lives are worthless, and I have a superior "race"? The Israeli that shot 4 Palestinians in cold blood deserved more punishment than he got, and nothing other than self-defense excuses his actions. Does that statement surprise you? If it does, you have absolutely no idea who I am, and what I stand for. I am in favor of capital punishment. If it was warranted in this case, I would have been in favor of a man who shot 4 human beings get the death penalty. See, unlike you, I don't excuse peoples' actions based on ridiculous excuses and psycho babble, and I hold people personally responsible for their deeds. As a civilized person, I can do nothing less.
Yes, in America, appealing to peoples' heart strings is a perfectly legitimate method and defense to get sentences shortened or appealed. That doesn't make them right, and it certain doesn't make them valid. The current American justice system has become so corrupt by pontificating Judges, that soon America will have no right to call itself a civilized society.
Again, unlike you, I see all evidence pointing to the concept of CHOICE. If one person within the Palestinian society has turned against violence, terrorism, and murder, than your entire argument is based on a sociological fallacy. Individual people are responsible for their actions. You choose what to do with your situation. Again, yes, the Palestinian society cultivates hate, death, and destruction. But, plenty of people have chosen NOT to go down that path. To say Israel is to blame for the fact that Palestinian school inculcate students, from NURSERY, to hate JEWS (not Israelis; JEWS), and the way to paradise is Jihad and blowing yourself up is as ridiculous as it is a complete justification of the unjustifiable. Well, the Germans were suffering while these Jews had cushy jobs and lots of money, so it's understandable that the Germans would have supported killing all the Jews.
Nothing in your last paragraph into any sort of context. To assume that the Israeli-Arab conflict is a zero-sum game is to assume that there's no solution to the problem. The bottom line is that in order for me to live, some-body has to suffer (because the alternative is me dead), than let it be so. I will NOT apologize for living. We Jews have done enough, thank you very much. More specifically, if they have to go through road-blocks every-day in order for me not to be blown up or shot (or, my life-style in the French Hill as you call it), than so be it. Yes, it's mean, but the facts say that this is the story. Yes, I don't want to have to take off my shoes and go through a security check at the airport. But, if it's between that and 9/11 , than I'd rather have my smelly feet hanging out than crashing into a building.
Your sentiments are cute and extremely meaningless given that you give no context or reasons for why the facts on the ground are the way they are. You can't seem to accept the fact that the Palestinians could change their life very easily and have had countless chances to do that over the past 58+ years. But, what you can't seem to grasp is that destroying Israel and killing Jews is more important to them than building a viable and successful country. You would like to think that your pop-psychology and pop-culture explanations for the situation to be true, because the alternative seems worse to you. The Jews are fighting for their survival? No, to you, they're all blood thirsty imperialist "Zionistas"
whose only goals and reasons for existing is to conquer land, oppress the Palestinians for revenge of past persecutions, and murder them from time to time for no apparent reason. Of course, you have no proof, other than Wikipedia, to back up your hateful prejudices, but that doesn't seem to bother you. You're comfortable in your world, and G-d forbid, facts actually get in the way with your warm fuzzy feelings. G-d forbid, you actually understand that the Jews have the god given right to self-determination and existence just like any-one else. No, you see Judaism as being defined as those guys with the beards that sat in the shtetls and kept their mouth shut when they were taken to the slaughter. You see the "Zealots" or the Jewish fighters of the past as terrorists and not really proper Jews, since they faught back against those that were trying to destroy them. I actually feel sorry for you.
-OC
Time to kick out Olmert and Co. They had a go and failed. Bibi deserves a chance. His anti-pullout stance seemed like an anti-Sharon publicity stance at the time, but he's been proven right.
What do you think?
Your argument is one of faction, as such, it works for you, but for no one else. Good luck getting the rest of the world on your side.
For the record, no one tried to destroy the Zealots, they caused massive upheaval by instigating reprisals against Jews for political reasons. They were quite atheistic, as evidened by their idolatrous human sacrifices on Massada.
Shlemazl, you may have a point. But, remember, Netanyahu pulled out of most of Hevron, and I actually believe that had Netanyahu been PM, he would have realized that Disengagement was inevitable. But, since he wasn't PM, he was able to take a more comfortable anti stance. I, personally, did not appreciate Netanyahu's political antics during the Disengagement period. I felt they were ill served and not genuine. I also believe that Netanyahu can make the most difference in the country and leave the best legacy as Finance Minister rather than PM. However, I do believe he deserves a second chance. His first premiership was marred and doomed before he took office, due to Rabin's assassination. I believe he could do much better the second time around. I agree with you. I think he deserves another shot.
Behemoth, I don't need the rest of the world on my side. Much of the rest of the world has proven over and over that they're not on the right side of events or history. So, that doesn't bother me. If all you're interested in is being popular than that's pretty pathetic.
Secondly, your account of the Mosada is extremely marred. Where did you get your information from? Wikipedia? Please name your sources. There were no "human sacrifices" on Mossada. Mass suicide does NOT equal human sacrifice. Seeing that you can't even get that one fact correct doesn't bode well for the rest of your account and interpretation. Finally, like you do with much else, you take one instance out of the context to define the whole picture and believe you've got the whole story correct. You really have to learn to do better, because, honestly, you're never going to be taken serious by serious people if you can't get these through your head and get them right.
-OC
REAL judaism has ALWAYS equated suicide with human sacrifice EVER SINCE ABRAHAMIC TIMES. Where did you learn YOUR judaism? Wikipedia? You've been letting Zionists rule your life so much you don't even know anything about Jewish philosophy anymore.
Behemoth, again, for the last time. Instead of accusations and name calling, bring SOURCES. You disagree with me? Fine. Be a mature grown up, and bring sources to contradict my claim. M'kay? Otherwise, do yourself a favor, and don't say anything.
-OC
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