Scarletwine
New Yorker
I totally agree Klaus, both are elected officials. Both thrive on violence, as seen from each's terrorist past.
Dreadsox said:OK...here goes nothing....
I am sure there are better organizations to use to make points than the JPPI...or at least ones that are not hanging with organizations that promote racism.
Klaus said:I think we all here agree that terrorism can't be accepted. All of is think of Mr. Arafat if we here Israel + Terrorism.
But i think what Mr. Sharon does is terrorism too - as revenge he uses the army and kills people where he thinks they are connected with terrorism.
This is far away from what i think could be called justice or defense.
Klaus
Listen to the pilots
By David Grossman
Now that the furor over the pilots' declaration has abated a bit, perhaps the time has come to listen attentively to the essence of what they wanted to say in their protest. Even if, in the end, "the voice of the masses" silences the pilots and even if some of them retract their protest, there is still validity and importance to what they have said. Basic fairness also says that a government and a people that send their sons to carry out the difficult and sometimes dirty work of this particular war on their behalf must listen, for once, in an unbiased way to what the people who are doing these things in their name are saying.
The bottom line of the pilots' message is that if the Palestinians are currently capable of carrying out painful attacks on Israel and Israeli citizens, the war that is raging is still, ultimately, a war between a military power and a civilian population. And in a war of this sort, Israel must impose limitations on itself of both a practical and a moral nature.
The pilots are reminding the Israelis that even if the aim of the military action is to hit a murderer who is to die, when a state orders its pilots to drop a 1-ton bomb into a residential neighborhood in the most densely populated place in the world, and with the clear knowledge that hundreds of innocent civilians are likely to get hurt, its action, to a significant extent, employs the methods of a terror organization. And when a state orders its pilots to use powerful missiles to hit a car that is driving in the midst of passersby, even if it does not want to harm them intentionally, the nature of the deed, as well as its results, are like those of a terror organization.
A state is not entitled to act in the same manner as a terror organization. It is worth remembering this even today, when our blood is boiling after the brutal terror attack in Haifa. One of the reasons for this is the destructive influence that such a mode of action has on the society itself. Another reason is that a state is not entitled to carry out assassinations and murders and executions without trial, because then it loses the legitimacy of its claims against the terror organizations.
And when the commander of the Israel Air Force says that "anyone who sets out to murder children in Israel has to take into account that in his own surroundings there are children who could get killed," he must understand that such an argument could serve as a double-edged sword, even if Israel does not harm children on purpose.
An obdurate government, which for a long time now has been thwarting any chance of negotiations and is using only force, force and more force with the Palestinians, is condemning its soldiers to torture themselves with unbearable moral dilemmas. Is it entitled to turn its back on them and be insulted and shocked, when these people are beginning, after so many years, to understand the use that is being made of them? Hasn't the time come to face the contents of what they have to say, and look straight into the mirror they have positioned - courageously and with a full willingness to pay the price - in front of all of Israel society?
The IDF has always proudly proclaimed that in its air force, it is not the aircraft that is the main thing, but the pilot, the man inside the machine. Every Israeli soldier grew up on the (oxymornonic) principle of purity of arms and every Isreli grew up on the belief that the IDF is the most humane and moral army in the world. How can the IDF top brass today deny that there are people there, inside the planes and the helicopters? What is the reason for the hermetic insensitivity of the majority of the public, which is not even prepared to listen for a moment to the distress of the people from whom it demands - not only to pursue a war against the enemy, but also to take upon their consciences, for their entire lives, the unnecessary killing of innocent men, women and children?
Something in the public's stormy and almost hysterical reaction that gives the impression that the "lynch mob" after the pilots does not derive only from the fact of the refusal to carry out missions: It seems that the more difficult thing, the unbearably difficult thing, that the pilots have done is that, in total surprise, they have torn off most Israelis the protective layer in which they have wrapped themselves for years so as not to know or understand what is really being done in their name.
This, perhaps, is also what is behind the absurd accusation of treason that is being cast at the pilots: If they have betrayed at all, they have betrayed only the huge, consensual denial, the collective blindness. For one moment, the pilots succeeded in creating the frightening, electrifying connection between what Israel has been doing in the territories for 36 years now and the terror attacks, and for this, apparently, it is hard to forgive them. It is possible to choose not to read the reports by Amira Hass and Gideon Levy, but when Hebrew pilots, the flesh of the flesh of the Israeli consensus and the jewel in its crown, force us to look, if only for a fleeting moment, into the heart of the darkness - the first instinct is to get out of there in a panic, patch up the rent that has been torn in the sophisticated flak jacket that protects us from the knowledge and understanding, and immediately - as we were taught in the IDF - to attack and fight back, this time against the pilots.
STING2 said:I remind you that Israel is a democracy and the majority of the population elected and support Sharon. The IDF does not target innocent civilians.
If that were the IDF goal, it could have killed all 3 million Palestinians 35 years ago. On the other hand, if Humas and Hezbolah had the capability to kill most or all the Jews in Israel, they would not hesitate to do so.
Why ?nbcrusader said:I think you've crossed the line with this one.
STING2 said:Lets remember, that the majority of Israey's support Sharon. Israel is a democracy not a dictatorship. Have some respect for the intelligent choices made by the people of Israel. Lets not forget what they have been through over the past 50 years and what many of their parents suffered through in the 1930s in Europe. Everyone in Israel is on the frontlines, and they have good reasons for supporting Sharon.
After 50 years of terrorism and violence from the Palestinians and Arabs, where is their non-violent movement for peace?
Rono said:And who had made that swamp anyway ?
Scarletwine said:
The reality is that there is more resistance inside the Israel Defense Forces to Sharon's policies than there is in Washington. Twenty four officers of the Israeli air force in recent weeks refused to participate in raids on the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, especially the assassination raids against the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The officers felt too many innocent civilians were being killed in the attacks. It's a pity that neither Bush nor Sharon has any such qualms.
STING2 said:It may be true that a democracy can elect a "bad" leader, but notice that the people of Israel CONTINUE to support Sharon and his policies. I think its about time people who trash Israely foreign policy notice that the intelligent people of Israel support the policy!
STING2 said:It may be true that a democracy can elect a "bad" leader, but notice that the people of Israel CONTINUE to support Sharon and his policies. I think its about time people who trash Israely foreign policy notice that the intelligent people of Israel support the policy!
Another thing. The IDF does not target civilians it does care very much about avoiding accidents. They know it is not to their political advantage to inflict accidentaly civilian losses on anyone.
STING2 said:
verte76,
The Israely government is similar to other parlimentary democracy's where a vote of No Confidence is required to replace a leader. I don't have the current opinion polls, but the people don't have to wait four years if they wanted a leader other than Sharon.