[Raellus]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

First off, it's a basic error to refer to these people as 'The Palestinians'. They were a thriving region of multiple ethnicities and religions.

Yes, but for the sake of brevity, I chose the umbrella term Palestinians (the majority being Muslim Arabs). Informed people, I am sure, know what we are talking about.

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

Second off, the concept of 'wipe Israel off the map' is a nuanced statement.

Only if it is spun. If you look at quotes from Arab leaders like Nasser, young Arafat, Assad, the Hamas and Hezbollah leadership, Ahmadinejad, etc. you will see that ethnic cleansing and genocide was/is their ultimate aim. They used this rhetoric publicly in order to generate support on the Arab "street" where these ideas are rather popular, to this day. Not to mention the undercurrent of Arab/Islamic radicalism that exists throughout the Middle East, even in "friendly" Arab states (see Sadat's assassination for pursuing peace with Israeli). I'm not sure how a people as persecuted as the Jews have been are supposed to take this sort of talk. As I said before, it is naive at best to assume that an Israeli military defeat would result in anything less than a second Holocaust.

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

As you guys probably know, since I stopped surveying I've been studying to become a historian. In Israel something is happening that is shocking historians; they are rewriting the local history to edit out the Palestinians. Villages that were extant when Australian troops rode through in World War One are now claimed to never have existed. This is something that must not be permitted to happen, if you rewrite history you are engaging in George Orwell's 1984 tactics. Alan Dershowitz has successfully stopped a historian getting tenure at his university due to 'anti-Semitism', which is odd because the guy was Jewish. All he was doing was documenting Palestinian village history. This is not normal Israeli behaviour, it is the behaviour of a conquering elite and a chilling insight into what may come.

I am a university trained historian as well. There is another trend among Israeli historians which you seem to be glossing over here. Israeli Revisionists seek to pin the blame for all of the regions ills on Zionism and the Jewish state. Their work is widely available in Israel, as well as abroad. There is no government censorship of such work. You make it sound as though all Israeli's are on the same page when it comes to culpability and that the government actively squashes any kind of dissent. This is quite simply not the case at all. Israel is a democracy and popular dissent is accepted if not encouraged.

On the other hand, some school textbooks in countries such as Egypt and Syria deny that a Holocaust took place and present all of the Middle East's current troubles to be caused by the "evil, imperialistic, Zionist, Jews". This is what Arab school children are being taught from a very young age. That can't be very helpful.

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

I'm fairly pragmatic, I think Israel is there now but I still know that Palestine is there as well. If Israel wants to continue its Spartan/Helot relationship with the Palestinians it should encounter the same attitude that the Spartans got in the ancient world; resistance from democracies.

I totally agree with you, here. I think that armed opposition is a given considering Israel's afore-mentioned, apartheid like rule over the occupied territories. I firmly believe that Israel must stop and remove settlements on the West Bank and in the Gaza strip and that they must create an independent Palestinian state in order to ever come close to achieving a lasting piece. However, they will never do this under the threat of violence. Hamas, therefore, is its own worst enemy. Haven't any of those people ever heard of Gandhi?

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

As for Hamas, Fatah and the PLO.
Well, when the PLO came back and Rabin was murdered, everything fell to pieces. The West Bank and Gaza are captive communities (and some of the densest population areas on earth, which means bombing should never be allowed). the PLO was called 'The Libyans' by the Palestinians because there weren't considered to have Palestine interests at heart, and Fatah is just as corrupted by the Israeli commercial interests they are the conduit for.
That leaves Hamas, which is by any definition extremist. But, they are also the Gaza infrastructure. The men of Hamas are not 'fighters', they are also police officers, firemen, ambulance drivers, postmen and so on. When these men are targeted they are gutting Gaza of its infrastructure. When 'Hamas targets' are struck they are hitting police stations and disaster relief.
This not war. This is not insurgency. You know what it is.

I'm not sure that I do. I have already stated that I think the current campaign is disproportionate to the provocation- overkill, if you will. Are you implying that something more sinister is going on here?

Once again though, what would you expect the Israelis to do when rockets are being fired into their towns and cities? Hamas is not targetting anything but innocent civilians. Yet, they seem to get a pass for this deliberately murderous behavior from many in the "global community". I don't understand this. If they were only targetting Israeli military checkpoints, installations, patrols, convoys, etc.- much like Hezbollah did in southern Lebanon, forcing an Israeli withdrawal- then I think the Israelis would have far less of my sympathy right now. I'd probably come out and unilaterally condemn the current Israeli "aggression" in Gaza. However, the truth is, Hamas is a classic terrorist organization. Israel will not- cannot- negotiate with terrorists. To do so would only encourage radicals and extremists to strike at Israel. What would you want your government to do if you had to hide in the basement bunker every few hours? This is an easy question for people who've never needed a basement bunker to ignore.

So, as a pragmatist, what would you do if you were the Israeli PM (or DM)?