Who’s The Loonie
It is well known that crazy lefties question “the perception that a strong arm and collective punishment suffice to deter a people that is fighting occupation.” No need to mention the fact that the radical self-hating lefies also believe that “during the years of the intifada the feeling prevailed among the Palestinians that they had nothing to lose, and along with this their motivation to become part of the cycle of violence increased.” I mean, these lies are repeated everywhere (including on Jewschool) by self-hating propagandists.
Oh, wait, it seems that a “report of a think-tank forum that operated with the blessing of Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon and was closely accompanied by Colonel Amos Lehman, his adviser for strategic thinking” arrived at the same conclusions. Check out the list of crazy lefties in this think-tank:
The committee, which met regularly since November 2003 at the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies was comprised of retired senior intelligence people: Ephraim Halevy, Reuven Merhav and Yossi Ben-Ari of the Mossad; Efraim Lavie of Military Intelligence; Kobi Michael of the Liaison and Coordination Unit.. [etc. etc. etc.]
Their report charges that the Israel Defense Forces – under the leadership of current Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, when he was chief of staff, and afterward, under Moshe Ya’alon – fanned the violent conflict that broke out in September 2000: “The levers of pressure that were applied to the Palestinian population and to the security apparatus, most of whose members did not take part at the beginning of the conflict, gave rise to negative results. A sense of anger and vengeance led to the tightening of the cooperation among the terror groups and between them and elements of the Palestinian security services that joined the conflict as a result of the IDF’s damages to them. As a result of this the phenomenon of suicide attacks swelled to unprecedented dimensions, spilling over into the nonreligious organizations.”
The report shoots down the conception that had taken hold in the public concerning the reasons for the failure of the peace process and the outbreak of the intifada, the escalation and the continuation of the hostilities.
I have already mentioned in the past that in my opinion not only is house demolitions immoral but it also does not stop terror. Like, duh.
Neither do you. Deserter
Hey Oofnik, you do what you do baby. When the “radical Left” is asked how they would fight terrorism, the honest nut jobs, say things like: “We should’ve never have entered WW 2, which led to the horrible state we’re in today” “Israel provokes their own terrorism” “We should sell all of our vehicles and bike to work” etc. It makes a great John Lennon song, but doesn’t do much to counter bus bombings. So for the rest of us, you allow your govt to try things. Y’know, sometimes a carrot and then a stick. And then a combination. I’m proud of the way the IDF employ innovative techniques to provide security to Israelis. I’m proud of the IDF who are constantly reviewing their actions to come up with some form of preventative measure to counter terrorism and more wars. I’m proud of these things. You my friend, usually spit in their direction. Gloat now, but we’ve read your posts and comments.
“self-hating propagandists”
Hey, if the shoe fits…
Hey, don’t you guys read Jewlicious? We’ve just had a monster discussion about this.
I do TM, But it’s much more fun to rip into Brown/Oofnik than it is to agree with you folks at Jewlicious. Although Jewlicious posts pixs of hotties and that wins out over wacky left wing Jews anyday. That pix of Laya at the wedding….nice;)
Shtreimel, isn’t that akin to encouraging us to put up extremist left wing propaganda so we can generate heated discussions and drive up traffic and participation? If you like, I can begin posting about apartheid. 😉
TM,
Nah, you’re too proud. Much better to have wonky Yids like Brown/Oofnik and at times Dan, to represent the shadowy side of the Jew. Still, you’ve got the boobies area covered. If you post more of that, at least as much as Jewschool posts wonky left wing poo poo, you’ll drive up traffic for sure. Boobies over Bafoons I say.
Hey you want to drive up traffic? Let me post a few things.
You will get a new spin on things – aside for the boring old same stuff.
Editorial from the LA Times (by Jonathan Chait) says it all:
Three years ago, Israel faced near-daily suicide bombings. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon responded by hastening construction of a security wall and launching a military crackdown in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Doves everywhere were horrified. “Mr. Sharon’s policy so far has been worse than ineffective; it is aggravating the terrorism,” wrote New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
As it happens, Sharon’s policy succeeded unequivocally. From September 2001 through July 2002, terrorists operating out of the West Bank killed 173 people. The following 12-month period, with the security wall under construction, that number fell to 68. The year after that, with the wall further completed, the number fell again to 28. Maybe Sharon aggravated the terrorists, but he did not aggravate terrorism.
***
The doves got it so wrong because they fundamentally misread the situation. The idea that harsh Israeli counter-terrorist measures must inevitably backfire is rooted in the view that the Middle East conflict is a “cycle of violence.” (No doubt you’ve heard this phrase countless times.) According to this theory, Palestinians attack Israelis because Israeli repression makes them desperate and angry. More repression creates more desperation and anger, which creates more terrorists.
Yet the last Palestinian uprising began as a response not to excessive Israeli strength but to a perception of Israeli weakness. In 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak withdrew his army from Lebanon in response to continued attacks. Later that year, he made concessions to Arafat in a noble but doomed effort to sign a peace accord. Arafat interpreted both these things as a sign that he could win even more concessions by unleashing a terrorist campaign.
Sharon’s counteroffensive stymied Hamas and the other militant groups and proved to many ordinary Palestinians that they couldn’t bleed Israel back to the bargaining table. That doesn’t make the suffering of innocent Palestinians any less tragic. But it does suggest that some pain was probably necessary not only to stop terrorist attacks but also to persuade the Palestinians to renounce violence. A report last month in this newspaper described Palestinian voters as “exhausted by violence.” It turns out the driving force in Israeli-Palestinian relations was not a “cycle of violence.” It was a dialectic: Palestinian rejectionism met a stronger Israeli response, which produced mutual accommodation.
I am glad that the IDF has stopped the retaliatory demolition of homes. Still. the fact is that over the past year and a half, successful terror attacks dropped dramatically. So if this wasn’t the result of home demolitions, what WAS it then? Was it…
1) The “apartheid wall”?
2) The “illegal assassinations?”
3) The “humiliating checkpoints?”
4) The refusal to negotiate with Arafat, the “duly elected leader of the Palestinian people?”
5) The U.S’s removal of Saddam, which was a “war for Israel?”
In short, a lot of nasty things happened over the past year or so, which may offend typical liberal sensibilities, including my own. But it is undeniable that, at least as a short term matter, the terror attacks greatly decreased. So let’s be honest with ourselves, and ask why that this happened.