In Defense of...Cecil Rhodes?!

Getting Things Straight About Israel

I think that Israel is one of the most divisive subjects among people, particularly because people with similar opinions on most issues can vociferously disagree on this issue.  I've wondered what causes people to come to completely different conclusions using the same evidence, and I realized that people often live in different realities.  And it's impossible to have a useful debate on a topic if people are trapped in separate realities.  So I think that it's of utmost importance that people share their version of reality.  Those with different realities can never agree, but if we come to understand the same reality, there is a chance at real understanding.

Let me give you an example.  If I say, "All dinosaurs died out around 65 million years ago." and someone else says, "No, they didn't.", then we can go back and forth and argue forever and not get anywhere because  we don't know the assumptions that the other person silently brings to the table.

The person arguing against me might believe in one of a number of realities.  Some might be extremely logical, and some might be completely illogical.  If it turns out that we both have logical realities, then we can perhaps come to an agreement, or at least an understanding.  If one or both of us have an illogical reality, then we will never be able to compromise, and it's no use debating until we can both accept the facts.

So, imagine that the person I'm arguing against explains more, and says, "I consider birds to be dinosaurs, as birds form a clade which is descended from dinosaurs.  I also consider humans to be monkeys and fish, because we are descended from those things.  Also, birds today are more closely related to Tyrannosaurus than a Tyrannosaurus is with a Triceratops."  If that were the other person's reasoning, then I would have to say, "Oh. I see.  I agree with the facts that you presented.  I just didn't know that your definition of dinosaurs included birds."  Problem solved.

But here are two other claims.  "Dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago, when Adam and Eve were around." and "Dinosaurs are alive today, because the Loch Ness Monster exists."  These people have completely different (and false) realities.  I can try to convince those people to join my reality (and use evidence and common sense), but people are generally unable to change realities, and any process if it happened would most likely be extremely gradual.  So I can present the evidence and hope that they will be reasonable, but if that doesn't happen and we can't get on the same page, they are a lost cause.

One more thing besides "reality" is also "values".  We can agree on a reality but have different values.  For example, if I say "Military force is sometimes justified", and a complete pacifist says, "Military force is never justified", then maybe we can agree on the same facts, but still come to different conclusions.  But those sentences are not enough.  We have to completely define the border of where we stand.  So, if I ask, "If a robber broke into your home and you were able to defend yourself, even to the point of killing the robber if your life was in danger, would you?...or would you never commit violence against someone?" the pacifist may say, "I would defend myself, even if I had to kill someone." or "I wouldn't defend myself, as I could never bring myself to kill someone."  If the answer is the former, then we can whittle it down more through extra questioning.  Similarly, if I think that military force is sometimes justified, the pacifist can ask me, "Do you think that it would be an appropriate response to drop a nuclear warhead on Gaza and kill everyone, so that your country is protected from rockets?"  My answer would be "no", and thus the pacifist can continue to ask me questions until we know EXACTLY how we differ.  Then, we can ONLY focus the argument on the area where we differ.  I think that would do a lot towards increasing understanding and stop pointless arguing over things we might actually agree on.

Finally, let me get on to Israel.  I will present the facts as I see them.  I will present my reality.  If there is anything wrong with my interpretation of reality, you can prove me wrong.  Or, perhaps there is information below that you didn't know about, so your interpretation of reality could change.  So, at the very least, you'll know where I stand.

So, without further ado, let's get onto it.

Jews have been living (not always as the majority) in Israel/Palestine since the 1840s...during the Ottoman Empire (and approximately at the same time that Americans started moving to places that were formerly under Mexican control such as California).  These were legal land purchases, and the Muslim Arab owners of the land sold it willingly.  The Ottoman Empire recognized these purchases.  Something to note is that "Palestine" did not exist at this time.  The empire was split into Ottoman provinces known as "villayets" and "sanjaks".  The "Vilayet of Beirut" encompassed northern "Palestine", as well as all of Lebanon and coastal Syria.  The "Sanjak of Jerusalem" encompassed southern "Palestine".  (Similarly, "Iraq" was made up of "Mosul", "Baghdad", and "Basra", which do not exactly conform to modern Iraq's boundaries.  There was no Iraq, either.  The "Vilayet of Syria" included western Jordan and eastern Syria.)

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilayets)

There were no "Palestinians".  There were relatively undifferentiated Arab tribes living in the area, but there was no "Palestinian identity", just like there is no "southern New Jersey - southeast Pennsylvania - northern Delaware" ethnic group.  We call them "Americans" or "Americans from the Mid-Atlantic region".  If somehow, these people lost their land, they would probably migrate to New York and Washington D.C. (if these areas let them settle...a big "IF", which I'll get into later).

After WWI, and the British Mandate, there came increased Jewish settlement.  In fact, the British tried to slow Jewish settlement, as Muslim Arabs were rioting against the newcomers.  Ostensibly, there was a shortage of land for Arabs, though it was noted that:

"The shortage of land is due less to purchase by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population. The Arab claims that the Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or swamps and uncultivated when it was bought." - Report of the Palestine Royal Commission - July 1937

Some poor Arabs sold their land because they needed the money (which seems fair, itself...they could always refuse), but "Analyses of land purchases from 1880 to 1948 show that 73 percent of Jewish plots were purchased from large landowners, not poor fellahin." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine#Influence_on_population)

After World War II in which half of the Jewish population in the world was exterminated, there was, you can say, some renewed interest in getting out of Europe among the survivors.  More Jews flowed into the Palestinian Mandate.  However, as I said, the British were not particularly keen on that, as they knew that the Muslim population didn't like it.  (This hatred of outsiders is completely accepted by many when it's Muslims, but called "xenophobia" in other circumstances.  Funny, that.)

Interestingly, the Independence of Israel was brought about by Jewish terrorists, notably the "Lehi".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(group))

"Its avowed aim was forcibly evicting the British authorities from Palestine, allowing unrestricted immigration of Jews and the formation of a Jewish state. It was initially called the National Military Organization in Israel, upon being founded in August 1940, but was renamed Lehi one month later.   Lehi split from the Irgun in 1940."

"During World War II, Lehi initially sought alliance with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, offering to fight alongside them against the British in return for the transfer of all Jews from Nazi-occupied Europe to Palestine."  (Not a good decision, by the way.)

"Lehi assassinated Lord Moyne, British Minister Resident in the Middle East, and made many other attacks on the British in Palestine."

"Irgun" was another group that carried out terrorist attacks.  Some elements of it later became the far-right "Herut" party, before the Herut party was absorbed (along with other groups) into the modern Likud party (which Benjamin Netanyahu belongs to).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun)

These attacks provoked the British into getting out of Israel.  The U.N. went about coming up with a plan to partition Israel/Palestine.  They determined where the Jewish and Muslim settlements were, and drew boundaries along the religious lines.  Their plan effectively separated the two major groups.  In the end, the Jewish and Muslim representatives were brought to the table to agree on the borders.  The Jewish representatives agreed, but the Muslim representatives did not agree (apparently because they did not think the Jews should have any land at all, even though by 1947, some Jewish settlements in the area were already 100 years old).  Heykal Pasha, an Egyptian delegate, threatened: "'The United Nations... should not lose sight of the fact that the proposed solution might endanger a million Jews living in the Moslem countries. Partition of Palestine might create in those countries an anti-Semitism even more difficult to root out than the anti-Semitism which the Allies were trying to eradicate in Germany.... If the United Nations decides to partition Palestine, it might be responsible for the massacre of a large number of Jews.'"

Then, "On 1 December 1947, the Arab Higher Committee proclaimed a three-day strike, and Arab bands began attacking Jewish targets. The Jews were initially on the defensive as civil war broke out, but gradually moved onto the offensive. The Palestinian Arab economy collapsed and 250,000 Palestinian-Arabs fled or were expelled."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel#Independence_and_first_years)

Upon defending themselves, Jewish representatives declared the independence of Israel.  "The following day, the armies of four Arab countries—Egypt, Syria, Transjordan and Iraq—entered what had been British Mandate Palestine, launching the 1948 Arab–Israeli War; Saudi Arabia sent a military contingent to operate under Egyptian command; Yemen declared war but did not take military action."

"After a year of fighting, a ceasefire was declared and temporary borders, known as the Green Line, were established. Jordan annexed what became known as the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip. The United Nations estimated that more than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled or fled during the conflict from what would become Israel."

After the war, "Israel made an offer to accept the return of 100,000 refugees (sometimes referred to as "The 100,000 Offer") to Israel, contingent upon Arab agreement to a comprehensive peace, and to resettlement of the remaining refugees in Arab countries. Israel also put forward a proposal called the "Gaza Plan," whereby Israel would repatriate some 200,000 refugees and 70,000 Arabs in Gaza as citizens if Egypt would relinquish control of Gaza Strip to Israel, and the international community would provide aid for refugee resettlement."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lausanne_Conference,_1949)

The Arab countries refused.  They did not accept the offer of allowing these Palestinians to return, because they did not want to take the remaining refugees.  If they had taken the refugees, then the 100,000-270,000 Palestinians would have become Muslim Israelis, and the rest of them would have melted seamlessly into the Arab populations of the surrounding countries.  But if the Arab countries had accepted that offer, they wouldn't be able to use the refugees as pawns to gain sympathy for the destruction of Israel.

Come to think of it, "Palestinian Refugees" were 711,000 people who were expelled after riots and wars against Jews didn't work out as planned.  That was in 1948.  How many Palestinian Refugees are there currently?  5,000,000.  That's SEVEN TIMES the number who were refugees in 1948.  This is not because more were kicked out of Israel.  No.  These are the descendants of Palestinians who were never allowed citizenship in Arab lands.  And the reason they were never given citizenship was so they can point to their desperate circumstances and blame it all on Israel.  The Palestinian refugees are in Arab countries.  They speak Arabic  They even speak the same dialect of Arabic: (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/73/Arabic_Dialects.svg/2000px-Arabic_Dialects.svg.png)  They are mostly of the same religion!  They should have been allowed to stay and become citizens of surrounding Arab countries.  But no.  In 1948, the "Palestinians" were created, even though they're just regional Arabs just like their neighbors...Arabs from two Ottoman provinces, neither of which was named Palestine nor had the borders of modern Israel or Palestine.  Yet Arab countries are intent on keeping them "Palestinians" - a new "nationality" which never existed before and shouldn't exist.

"Over 400,000 Palestine refugees live in Lebanon, who are deprived of certain basic rights. Violating Human rights, Lebanon barred Palestine refugees from 73 job categories including professions such as medicine, law and engineering. They are not allowed to own property, and even need a special permit to leave their refugee camps. Unlike other foreigners in Lebanon, they are denied access to the Lebanese health care system. The Lebanese government refused to grant them work permits or permission to own land. The number of restrictions has been mounting since 1990. In June 2005, however, the government of Lebanon removed some work restrictions for a few Lebanese-born Palestinians, enabling them to apply for work permits and work in the private sector. In a 2007 study, Amnesty International denounced the "appalling social and economic condition" of Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_refugee#Lebanon)

It is worth noting that even before the declaration of Israel, and also well after, pogroms against Jews all across Muslim lands (and the Soviet Union) had started.  Jews had always been persecuted, but this time, all over the Middle East and North Africa, Muslims were continually massacring Jews, with the survivors escaping.  These people generally fled to Israel or the United States.

Just to give you two examples:

1) "Almost all Jews of Algeria left upon independence in 1962, particularly as 'the Algerian Nationality Code of 1963 excluded non-Muslims from acquiring citizenship', allowing citizenship only to those Algerians who had Muslim paternal fathers and grandfathers."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_of_Jews_from_Arab_lands)

2) "Farhud (Arabic: الفرهود‎) refers to the pogrom or "violent dispossession" carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on June 1–2, 1941 during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. The riots occurred in a power vacuum following the collapse of the pro-Nazi government of Rashid Ali while the city was in a state of instability. Before British and Transjordanian forces arrived, around 175 Jews had been killed and 1,000 injured. Looting of Jewish property took place and 900 Jewish homes were destroyed. By 1951, 110,000 Jews—80% of Iraqi Jewry—had emigrated from the country, most to Israel. The Farhud has been called the "forgotten pogrom of the Holocaust" and "the beginning of the end of the Jewish community of Iraq", a community that had existed for 2,600 years."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud)

"From the onset of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War until the early 1970s, 800,000–1,000,000 Jews left, fled, or were expelled from their homes in Arab countries; 260,000 of them reached Israel between 1948 and 1951 and amounted for 56% of the total immigration to the newly founded State of Israel. 600,000 Jews from Arab and Muslim countries had reached Israel by 1972. By the Yom Kippur War of 1973, most of the Jewish communities throughout the Arab World, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan, were practically non-existent."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus_of_Jews_from_Arab_lands)

I have this message to anyone who thinks that Jews are occupying Israel:

Please, by all means, go to the child of a Holocaust victim and say, "Go back to Germany!"

Please, by all means, go to the child of someone whose family escaped a lynch mob in Algeria and say, "Go back to your home in Algeria!"

Please, by all means, go to a Jewish child whose parents, grandparents, and great grandparents were born in Israel and say, "Go back home to wherever you came from!"

I DARE YOU.

Of course, Muslim Arab countries could never accept a Jewish state, even though the Muslim Arab world is 642 times as large in land area.

"Since 1964, Arab countries were trying to divert the headwaters of the Jordan river to deprive Israel of water resources, provoking tensions with Syria and Lebanon. Arab nationalists led by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser refused to recognize Israel, and called for its destruction."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel#Conflicts_and_peace_treaties)

"In 1967, Egypt expelled UN peacekeepers, stationed in the Sinai Peninsula since 1957, and announced a partial blockade of Israel's access to the Red Sea. In May 1967 a number of Arab states began to mobilize their forces. Israel saw these actions as a casus belli. On 5 June 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive strike against Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq. In a Six-Day War, Israeli military superiority was clearly demonstrated against their more numerous Arab foes. Israel succeeded in capturing the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. Jerusalem's boundaries were enlarged, incorporating East Jerusalem, and the 1949 Green Line became the administrative boundary between Israel and the occupied territories."

This was known as the Six-Day War.  After the Six-Day War, Israel began a policy of settling some of their newly-obtained land, particularly the West Bank.  This has continued up to the present, and there is currently a substantial number of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, making it extremely difficult to ever completely give the territory over to a Palestinian authority.  This problem is one of the most difficult ones for the future of the peace process in the Middle East.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Westbankjan06.jpg)

I think I should make one point here.  All throughout the history of the world, whenever a country has won land, it has thought of that land as part of its country and accordingly did whatever it wanted with that land, including populating it.  When the United States won Mexican land (New Mexico, Arizona, California, etc), it called this land U.S. territory, and from then on it was.  As in the pledge of allegiance, the U.S. is seen as "indivisible".  I may disagree that countries are indivisible, but that's what almost every country on the face of the planet has ever thought throughout all of history.  Saudi Arabia was originally an area called "Nejd" (which was itself stolen by brutal force), and it invaded and overtook the Hashemite Kingdom (which owned "Hejaz", including Mecca and Medina) and which still rules Jordan.  I don't see the Saudi royal family giving Mecca and Medina back to the Jordanian king.  I very much doubt this will happen any time soon.

"At the end of August 1967, Arab leaders met in Khartoum in response to the war, to discuss the Arab position toward Israel. They reached consensus that there should be no recognition, no peace, and no negotiations with the State of Israel, the so-called 'three no's'."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab-Israeli_conflict#1967.E2.80.931973)

While some nations, notably Egypt (under Anwar Sadat, who subsequently got assassinated), made peace with Israel eventually, these "three no's" are still a very powerful concept in the Middle East today.

Let's not forget the Yom Kippur War of 1973, in which "the [Arab] coalition launched a joint surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, which happened to occur that year during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Egyptian and Syrian forces crossed ceasefire lines to enter the Israeli-held Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights respectively, which had been captured and occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War)

Add to this the non-stop barrage of terrorist attacks and maybe you'll understand why Israel is a so-called "Apartheid Regime".  It's true that Israel has been building walls, but this was done in response to the huge number of terrorist attacks.  If people carry in bombs from their settlements everyday in order to kill your civilians, it is understandable that you might want to build a wall.  The Palestinians by and large never wanted to be part of Israel.  They only wanted the territory of Israel to themselves.  They were also either not allowed or unwilling to settle in other Arab countries.  (Jordan has a very large population of Palestinians, however.  It did own the West Bank at one point, after all.  At that time, the Palestinians there were known as "Jordanians".)

The First Intifada (a Palestinian uprising) was from 1987-1993.  I'll save some time by copying and pasting what Wikipedia has to say about it (which is how I got most of my information on it, anyway) instead of just writing it over in other words.  "After Israel's capture of the West Bank, Jerusalem, Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Jordan and Egypt in the Six-Day War in 1967, frustration grew among Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories. The "Iron Fist" policy of cracking down on Palestinian nationalism began by Israel in 1985. This was accompanied by economic integration and increasing Israeli settlements such that the Jewish settler population in the West Bank alone nearly doubled from 35,000 in 1984 to 64,000 in 1988, reaching 130,000 by the mid nineties. Referring to the developments, Israeli minister of Economics and Finance, Gad Ya'acobi, stated that "a creeping process of de facto annexation" contributed to a growing militancy in Palestinian society."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_intifada#General_causes)

The First Intifada started in earnest when "On 6 December 1987, an Israeli businessman was stabbed to death while shopping in Gaza. Two days later, four residents of the Jabalya refugee camp—the largest of the eight refugee camps in the Gaza Strip—were killed in a traffic accident involving an Israeli trucker. Rumors circulated that the accident was, in fact, a deliberate act of revenge for the stabbing of the businessman. Mass rioting broke out on 9 December after a Palestinian teen was shot dead by an Israeli soldier after having thrown a Molotov cocktail at an army patrol."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_intifada#The_Intifada)

After all was said and done, the Israelis had killed 1,162 Palestinians, while Palestinians had killed approximately 1,160-1,164 people.  This is almost dead even (no pun intended).  Many people against Israel will quote 160-164 Israelis dead and 2,162 Palestinians dead.  However, that is not an honest assessment.  Of course, it is much harder to kill people who are protected by a strong military, and thus Israeli deaths are going to be lower (although 3,100 Israelis were wounded).  But of the 2,162 dead Palestinians, approximately 1,000 were killed by other Palestinians.  "While Israeli forces killed an estimated 1,100 Palestinians and Palestinians killed 164 Israelis, Palestinians killed an estimated 1,000 other Palestinians as alleged collaborators, although fewer than half had any proven contact with the Israeli authorities."  This easily shows to me that those Palestinians taking an active part in the Intifada would have loved to have killed many more Israelis, but just couldn't accomplish it, so they killed other Palestinians.  (Something to think about when you only judge countries based on casualties, and not on intent.)

The Second Intifada from 2000-2005 was even bloodier.  "On the occasion of Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, also known as Al-Haram Al-Sharif, and an area sacred to both Jews and Muslims, a riot broke out among Palestinians at the site, resulting in a conflict between Israeli forces and the protesting crowd."

"Palestinians view the Second Intifada as part of their ongoing struggle for national liberation and an end to Israeli occupation, whereas many Israelis consider it to be a wave of Palestinian terrorism instigated and pre-planned by then Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat."

"Palestinian tactics ranged from mass protests and general strikes, similar to the First Intifada, to armed attacks on Israeli soldiers, security forces, police, and civilians. Methods of attack include suicide bombings, launching Qassam rockets and mortars into Israel, kidnapping of both soldiers and civilians, including children, shootings, assassination, stabbings, stonings, and lynchings."

"Israeli tactics included curbing Palestinians' movements through the setting up of checkpoints and the enforcement of strict curfews in certain areas. Infrastructural attacks against Palestinian Authority targets such as police and prisons was another method to force the Palestinian Authority to repress the anti-Israeli protests and attacks on Israeli targets .[citation needed] Aggressive riot control was designed to "restore deterrence" believed to be lost when Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Intifada#Overview)

The death toll came to be about 1,000 Israelis dead and 3,000 Palestinians dead.  Civilians made up the bulk of the Israeli war dead, and perhaps the majority of Palestinian war dead as well.

These uprisings came about partly because of increased Jewish settlement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip after they were obtained in victory over Jordan and Egypt, respectively.

Remember how I said that once countries take over territories, they consider it their land forever more, and never give it back?  Well, after the 1979 signing of a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, Israel pulled out of the Sinai Peninsula, which it had won in the Six-Day War.

Then, in 2005, Israel unilaterally disengaged from the Gaza Strip (and also demolished some Jewish settlements in the West Bank.  "The Israel Defence Forces left the Gaza Strip on 1 September 2005 as part of Israel's unilateral disengagement plan, and all Israeli citizens were evicted from the area. An 'Agreement on Movement and Access' between Israel and the Palestinian Authority was brokered by Condoleezza Rice in November 2005 to improve Palestinian freedom of movement and economic activity in the Gaza Strip. Under its terms, the Rafah crossing with Egypt was to be reopened, with transits monitored by the Palestinian National Authority and the European Union."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Strip#2005_.E2.80.93_Israel.27s_unilateral_disengagement)

I remember this clearly, because I was on vacation when this happened, and I saw it in the news.  Previously, in one school class years earlier, I remember watching a video which made out the Jewish Israelis to be hateful people who loved throwing Muslims off their land and were continuing to do so because "God gave Israel to the Jews", while the Palestinians were a meek people seeking basic human rights, including the right to stay in their homes.  Thus, the Gaza pull-out shocked me.  I was amazed that Israel had the moral courage to pull their own people out of their houses for the sake of peace.  Then, when I heard about the rocket attacks coming from that same territory that was given up for peace, as well as the election of Hamas as the government of the Gaza Strip, I realized that the majority of Muslim Palestinians, by and large, never wanted peace.  They wanted Israel's destruction.  And they showed that with their election of the terrorist organization of Hamas.  Hamas does not only believe that all Jews should be killed or expelled from Israel, but they also boast of carrying out terrorist attacks.  However, they were still able to win first place in the Palestinian election of 2006 (which included Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem).  Fatah came in second place.  The Fatah Party (the political party which Yasser Arafat was part of) has likewise in the past included terrorist groups but is not currently known as a terrorist group itself).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_legislative_election,_2006#Results)

Although not called a terrorist organization, after the 2006 election loss, Fatah started a campaign to assassinate members of Hamas.  This brought open conflict between the two factions.  Hamas was stronger in the Gaza Strip, and Fatah was stronger in the West Bank, and their war came to a stalemate in which Hamas came to control Gaza and Fatah came to control the West Bank.

The democratic election of a terrorist organization brought heavy sanctions from Western countries as well as Israel.  Freedom for Palestinians to move out of the Gaza Strip had long been restricted - at least since 1989, during the First Intifada.  However, a more thorough blockade of the Gaza Strip commenced after the elections, and particularly after a large increase of rocket attacks emanating from Palestinian territories, and primarily from the Gaza Strip.  In 2005, there were 1,255 mortar and rocket attacks aimed at Israeli civilians.  Here are the number of attacks in subsequent years:
2006: 1,777
2007: 2,807
2008: 3,716

In December of 2008, Israel commenced the Gaza War and a more thorough blockade of Gaza, in an attempt to keep weapons out of the hands of the terrorists who were using the Gaza Strip as a base.  In the Gaza War, 1,417 Palestinians died, and 13 Israelis were killed.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War)

Some may look at these numbers and think that Hamas and other terrorist organizations were the "good guys", because they held back and didn't feel like killing many Israelis in the war.  But any thinking person will know that's not true.  In wars, those with better weaponry, strategy, and training win.  Winning usually means casualties on the other side (including, sadly, civilian casualties, which occur in every single war).  The Israelis had complete air superiority and weapons guidance systems, and were thus able to make almost every single missile hit a target.

In 2009, "only" 858 rockets and mortars came from Gaza.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel#Casualties.2C_Fatalities_and_rockets_fired)

The Israeli blockade against Gaza (which at times was mirrored by an Egyptian blockade of Gaza) also included a naval blockade keeping supplies out.  This had the effect of keeping not only weapons out of Gaza, but other supplies as well, including various types of food.  The people of Gaza were stricken with even more poverty.  Some flotillas attempted to break through the Israeli naval blockade, most notably in 2010, when a ship from Turkey attempted to bring supplies to Gaza but was intercepted by the Israeli navy and boarded.  A detailed account of what happened can be found here:
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_flotilla_raid#Mavi_Marmara_boarding)

This brings us to the current violence.  In 2012, up until mid-November, well over 800 rockets and mortars had been fired into Israel.  171 were fired just in the month of October.  (Around 12,791 rocket and mortar attacks against Israel have occurred since 2001.)

"After a week in which dozens of rockets struck Israel and Israel conducted strikes against militant targets in Gaza in a major escalation on 24 October, 80 rockets and mortars were fired from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel over a 24-hour period. Thirty-two missiles struck the Lachish region and 28 the western Negev. A rocket strike on the agricultural area of the Eshkol region severely wounded two Thai workers. Earlier that day three members of a Palestinian rocket-launching squad were killed by airstrikes and Israeli tanks returned fire at launching sites in Gaza. Hamas promised to 'continue carrying the rifle...until the liberation of Palestine and the defeat of the occupation.'"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Pillar_of_Defense#Preparations)

Later, Israeli security forces shot and killed Palestinians who were attempting to plant bombs on the Israel-Gaza border.  On November 10th, Palestinian militants hit a jeep full of Israeli soldiers with an anti-tank missile.

During all of the 800+ missile attacks this year (and last, and the year before that), the "Chomskyan Liberal" establishment was completely silent.  Not a word.  Things changed when Israel decided to fight back.  In "Operation Pillar of Defense/Cloud", the Israeli military assassinated Ahmad Jabari, chief of Hamas' military wing.  After that, things escalated, and Israel went on the offensive and bombed numerous targets in Gaza which were related to the Gazan military machine.  The head of the Hamas' rocket program was also assassinated, for example.

And there we have it.  That's the modern history of Israel, in a nutshell.  (I know!  Those monsters!)  Before I wrap things up, I want to go over some important points that I'd like to get across.

1) Some people don't understand that in wars, civilians die.

That's not a good thing, but it's often unavoidable.  And if you are unwilling to fight back, you merely paint a larger target on your back.  If I were living in America and the United States fired nuclear missiles at Russia and destroyed Saint Petersburg and parts of Moscow, and the Russians responded to that, and my town was hit by a Russian nuclear warhead, and I found myself dying of radiation poisoning, I don't know if I would say "It's the Russians' fault! They all need to die."  I think that even in that circumstance, I would be able to blame my own country more than I blamed the country that fought back against my country's aggression.  Of course, I'm not really in that situation, and I hope I never am, so I can't be sure that I would be that objective if such a thing happened, but looking at things objectively in my current situation, I think that I would understand that I was dying from radiation poisoning due to America's aggression and Russia's act of self-preservation.

2) Causing a greater number of casualties does not automatically make you worse.

Around 12,791 rockets and mortars have been fired at Israel since 2001.  You can believe that the Gazans who fired those rockets were thinking "I really hope that this rocket lands in a field, so it doesn't hurt anyone."  I doubt that is the case.  I think that the Gazans responsible have been trying to kill as many people as possible.  A school would be a bull's eye!  But let's say that an average Gazan terrorist is only trying to blow up one house with a family of four in it.  That comes to 51,164 Israeli civilians that Gazan terrorists have TRIED to kill.  Thankfully, they have such pathetic weaponry. The only difference is that when the Israeli military has a target, they hit it.

Let's imagine a situation for a second.  Imagine that I'm an American and I'm at my house in the town in which I was born.  All of a sudden, three men break in.  (Let's even say that they're all full-blooded Native Americans.)  I hear whispers of "OK. Let's find him and kill him!"  I run to get a gun.  (I own that gun because my grandfather's house was looted and he was murdered, so I don't want the same thing to happen to me.)  As I lurch for the gun, someone spots me.  He fires shots and barely misses me.  But I'm able to get my gun.  As I run up the stairs, another guy fires and grazes my leg.  I'm now bleeding.  However, I've made it upstairs and now have a position of strength.  As the three men run up the stairs to get me, I unload a magazine into them and they all fall down the stairs, dead.  The police arrive and find the three dead men.  However, they only find two weapons. One of the men was unarmed.

Which of these responses seems more appropriate?
1) "You did a good job protecting yourself."
2) "Those Native Americans were merely trying to take back their land. You're an intruder."
3) "How could you harm an unarmed civilian!?  You monster!"
4) "You murdered three of them, and you only sustained a leg wound. You went way too far.  The side which suffers more casualties is always more moral.  Thus, you are the immoral one."
5) "Your grandfather was murdered, so you should be against murder!  Have you learned nothing?!"

Personally, I'd go with "Number 1".  Which would you choose?

3) Most people who hate Israel also don't think that the number of casualties is the most important thing.

If Israel-haters really were super-concerned about casualties, they wouldn't be focusing on the Middle East.  They'd be focusing on the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Where is their outrage about what has been going on there?  I have yet to see it.

The "Second Congo War" was the bloodiest war since World War II.  It went on from 1998-2003, but has actually never completely stopped.  In fact, a Congo War III is in the making as I speak.  Here are the figures for the first two Congo Wars.

Congo War I (1996-1997):
250,000–800,000 dead (200,000+ refugees massacred, 222,000 refugees missing)

Congo War II (1998-2003-present):
2.7–5.4 million excess deaths
350,000+ violent deaths from 1998 to 2001, many more since then
Hundreds of thousands if not more raped, tortured, and abducted

The war continues.  It is still raging today.

"In 2009, people in the Congo may still be dying at a rate of an estimated 45,000 per month, and estimates of the number who have died from the long conflict range from 900,000 to 5,400,000. The death toll is due to widespread disease and famine; reports indicate that almost half of the individuals who have died are children under the age of 5. This death rate has prevailed since efforts at rebuilding the nation began in 2004."

"The long and brutal conflict in the DRC has caused massive suffering for civilians, with estimates of millions dead either directly or indirectly as a result of the fighting. There have been frequent reports of weapon bearers killing civilians, destroying property, widespread sexual violence, causing hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes or otherwise breaching humanitarian and human rights law. An estimated 200,000 women have been raped."

"In 2003, Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti pygmies, told the UN's Indigenous People's Forum that during the war, his people were hunted down and eaten as though they were game animals. In neighbouring North Kivu province there has been cannibalism by a group known as Les Effaceurs ('the erasers') who wanted to clear the land of people to open it up for mineral exploitation. Both sides of the war regarded them as 'subhuman' and some say their flesh can confer magical powers."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR_Congo#Impact_of_armed_conflict_on_civilians)

I read a very telling article today, which shows how much these anti-Israel people who claim to speak up for all suffering and oppressed people really care about civilians throughout the world:

"Goma falls to Congo's 'M23' rebels without expected bloodbath"
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/democraticrepublicofcongo/9691489/Goma-falls-to-Congos-M23-rebels-without-expected-bloodbath.html)

It's somewhat funny, because obviously, a bloodbath was expected.  Now, raise your hand if you had heard of Goma before today.  OK, now raise your hand if you know anything about the history of this war or even who the sides involved in this conflict are.  Finally, raise your hand if you blogged, tweeted, posted, or did anything to raise awareness about anything that has ever gone on in DR Congo.  My guess is that only a small minority of you were able to raise your hand.  But oh, wow...the Palestinians casualties during an Israeli defensive campaign are just the worst off people on earth.

Getting back to the lack of a bloodbath, it should be pointed out that another article says that "Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes or refugee camps around Goma, a city of about one million that is sheltering tens of thousands of refugees."

"Aid group Oxfam described the situation as 'a humanitarian catastrophe on a massive scale' and urged the international community to act. In a report, it said civilians were being raped, kidnapped and killed, as well as 'being subjected to an unprecedented level" of extortion and looting.'"
(http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/11/2012112019378178755.html)

This is happening NOW.  WHERE IS YOUR OUTRAGE ABOUT THIS?

If we take the 1,000 or so Palestinians who were killed by Israelis in during the six-year-long First Intifada, and we condense all of that killing into one year, and then we have that murder happen every year since the date that Jesus was claimed to have been born (that is, 1,000 deaths EACH YEAR over a period of 2 thousand years), that is only 2 million deaths, which is LOWER than the number of people who died during the Second Congo War.

4) Palestinian militants are committing many more heinous crimes against humanity than are Israelis.


Many Israel-Haters say that Israel commits crimes against humanity.  And they will pass along pictures of every single picture of a civilian they can find.  However, they are completely silent about the very real Palestinian crimes against humanity.  For example, one recent headline reads "Gaza's motorcycle lynch mob: 'spies' executed, corpse dragged through streets".
(http://www.theage.com.au/world/gazas-motorcycle-lynch-mob-spies-executed-corpse-dragged-through-streets-20121121-29or1.html)

Armed Gazan groups have been murdering people and dragging their corpses down the streets.  Not a peep from the Israel haters.  "They had it coming", right?  But imagine the uproar if Israelis had instead been the ones to do that.  It would have made first-page headlines, instead of being a minor story which nobody pays attention to.


5) Muslim, Christian, Druze, and other Arabs live in Israel Proper.

Here's something you never hear.  There are many Muslims living inside the borders of Israel Proper, and they're honestly not doing too bad.

Below is a map that shows the Arab population in various parts of Israel.  They make up a majority in some areas, and a significant minority in several other areas:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Arab_population_israel_2000_en.png)

And for all the talk of Jews taking over the holy land, the Jewish population in Israel has been continually decreasing since the formation of Israel.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_of_Israel.png)

How many of these Arabs living in Israel want to be part of a Muslim Arab state?  Survey says:
83% prefer continued Israeli jurisdiction
11% prefer joining a Palestinian state
6% had no opinion

These are the reasons why survey takers opposed joining a Palestinian state:
54% want to stay mainly because they prefer to remain in democratic regime with high living standards
18% want to stay mainly because they are satisfied with their present situation
14% are not willing to make sacrifices for creation of Palestinian state
11% didn't state a reason
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Israelis#Land_and_population_exchange)

What a racist regime Israel is!  It won't let Palestinians in their traditional lands...except for the many Palestinians who are known as Arab Israelis who accept the state of Israel and are mostly living peacefully in Israel.

In fact, demographic trends show that within this century, Arabs will likely become the majority in Israel!

Did you know that there have always been Arab members of the Israeli Knesset (Legislature)?  There are currently 17 members (making up 14% of the Knesset).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_members_of_the_Knesset)

Do any of you think that Jews living in Palestinian territories (or any Islamic countries, for that matter) would have as good a life as Arabs currently enjoy in Israel?  Be honest.

Well, that's about all I have to say for now.  Thanks for reading if you made it this far!  Please tell me if I've made any mistakes.  If we can agree on the same reality, then we can actually start to debate the important things, like how much force should be used, and where the peace process should go from here.