Amnesty International : Palestinian armed groups should stop killing civilians

by Pat c watcher Mon Mar 17, 2003 18:14

I bet you anything Pat c will be on here in a short while condemning Amnesty for being anti palestinian and being zionist stooges etc etc.

by nolympics Mon Mar 17, 2003 19:00

i disagree with the equivocation that amnesty draws between Israeli repression and Palestinian resistance. Israel has been in violation of every aspect of international 'law' since its foundation. the situation has been particularly egregious since '67 when Israel invaded and began to transfer its population to the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights. israel enjoys the largesse of the US, Germany and Sweden among others. this extends to military hardware aswell as technology transfers, enabling the Israeli economy to enjoy an essentially subsidised affluence. palestinians on the other hand are lucky to recieve emergency food and medical assistance. for the most part their infrastructure has been destroyed where it could not be tightly controlled by Israel. the Israeli political and military strategy has been to completely overwhelm palestinian society and more recently there has been a clear escalation with the intent to finally destroy it.

israel is a state with voting rights at the UN, that enjoys full diplomatic relations with most 'western nations', that enjoys subsidies, preferred trading status and a built in advantage over its semi domestic hostages. for amnesty to draw a line under certain forms of palestinian resistance suggests that there is the possibility for palestinians to explore some sort of reasonable political strategy that would lead to them winning a modicum of political rights. this just isnt borne out by the facts or by their experience.

many people reject and criticise Palestinian targeting of civilians as a useless tactic politically because it provides the israeli state with justification for more radical forms of repression. this is true up to a point, but it is also true that the Israelis have never needed such pretexts to come down hard on palestinian civilians. One example among many is the bombing of Beiruit during the invasion of lebanon during the early eighties. this lasted 3 full weeks and killed hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians.

so amnestys report isolates the palestinian tactic of targeting civilians from the political context in which it occurs. it furthermore fails to distinguish between civilians inside the 67 borders and settlers in the territories. Settlers are clearly protagonists and only by the most conservative standards can they be regarded as civilians. they are dupes for the most part, to be sure, but they are actively engaged in the illegal appropriation by arms of Palestinain land. this would seem to me to legitimise their targeting.

i find suicide bombings of civilians as distasteful as the next person. i also question the military logic of it. it reminds me of republican sloganeering about who can endure more rather than who can inflict more determining the outcome of conflict. thats all very well for the cadres who have made a choice to resist but of course its played out in the daily lives of ordinary people. for those who engage in it they arent really thinking at a very elevated level of political discourse, most are young and are seeking revenge. for those others who may 'organise' these attacks or at least make material preparations for them there is a more sophisticated strategy. but much of it has to do with internal palestinian turf wars among different formations. for example the AL aksa matyrs are a relatively secular grouping who only took up the use of suicide bombing when they felt their support base, and so any role in the furute state, threatened by the popularity of Hamas suicide bombings.

but ultimately there is no prospect of Palestinians deleting civilians from its target list until the situation is demilitarised fully by the israelis. and that means withdrawal.

by Avid Avi Fan Mon Mar 17, 2003 19:29

Those beastly Palestinian cads should immediately stop terrorising innocent civilians and return to where they came from .....

I ask you ladies and gentlemen:
HAVE THEY NO HOMES TO GO TO ?

(Will that vicious anti-semite who mentioned "bulldozers" please leave the discussion forum ......)

by de boyho Mon Mar 17, 2003 19:34

"The report "Without distinction: attacks on civilians by Palestinian armed groups" is the seventh major report on the human rights situation in the region published by the organisation since the beginning of the intifada."

So Avi old chap do you have any more information on what was in the other six reports .....?

Any chance you might enlighten us there ... ?

by zapata - hells heaven Mon Mar 17, 2003 20:42 crustinon at hotmail dot com

some people need 2 wise up. wot on earth forces people,(many youngsters) 2 carry out these acts of suicide? obviously a symptom of isreals brutal policys.
how many civillians dead?
well youd do well 2 remember, almost 4 out of every 5 people killed in this messy conflict are palestinians.(although, of course the corporate media trys make us beleive different)
once the oppressed, now the oppressor, how much land does the greedy isrealy war lords plan on stealing from palestine,wheres the international laws. guess its o.k. if ur in league with satan(bush).
swimmin in their nice garden pools whilst the poor people of palestine dont even have fresh water 2 drink. shame on you.
why in all my travels have i met so many previliged isrealis and yet not one palestinian? the reality is sickening...my heart is with the refugees, struggling in their own country.
"no one is free whilst others are oppressed" up the intifada and freedom for palestine.
zappata.

by T Dillon Mon Mar 17, 2003 22:35

The State of Israel has learned precious little since its own bloody birth with the Hagannah terrorist campaign against the one time British colonial masters of the region. Former prime minister Menachim Begin is revered as a freedom fighter by the people of Israel, leader in fact of the Jewish Irgun terrorist organisation. Among his statesman like activities for the cause of Israeli freedom, is the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1948, killing more than 90 innocent people, but one terrorist act of one of the most illustrious sons of Israel and to this day the greatest single act of terror carried out in Palestine. The only apparent difference between that undeniable act of terrorism, and that of a teenage Palestinian suicide bomber, is that the suicide bomber (like the Kamikaze fighter of the second World War) has the conviction / rage / courage / hate (whatever you want to call it)to sacrifice his own life as well as that of his victims whereas Begin didn't.

These modern day ambulatory human bombs, the most lethal weapon yet in man's arsenal, the Palestinian answer to Israel's bulldozers and America's Patriots and Apaches, paradoxically illustrate for all the world in a flash, the absolute desperation and determination of the Palestinian people to survive. These suicide kids believe they are left with no future and no other option in this tragic and needless war. Before you judge them, ask the same question about amok running high school kids in the US or Germany who murder half a classroom. What could provoke such rage in Happy Valley? Palestinians might ask you what your children are fighting against. Who bulldozed those Colorado kids' homes and pools, imprisoned their brothers, stole their family's land, murdered their parents?

Unfortunately the "natural" human response to violence is more violence, one need only look at Irish history. Does it matter if one side is castigated by Amnesty International or the UN for that matter when both sides are doing it? There is no nice way of murdering your enemies as Bush well knows. Who am I and who are you decide the way a race responds to a brutal,overwhelming occupation hell bent on its annihilation and stealing its land? For the Irish to throw stones at the Palestinians is laughable and offensive as the israelis who insult them as they kill them and their children on a daily basis.

In all-out war innocent civilians have never been spared. The cases of Auschwitz,Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, El Arish, Shatila, Sabra, Jenin and the carpet bombing, napalming and chemical poisoning of Vietnam with Agent Orange dioxin amply testify to that. The goal is simple, to inflict the most mortal damage on the other side possible. Of the destructiveness of human nature there is indeed no doubt in the rest of the world.

"419 Villages wiped off the face of the earth, not by Arabs or Nazis, but by Jews”.Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushu'a in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab Population."

( Moshe Dayan, Israeli war hero, Address to the Technion, Haifa, as quoted in Ha'aretz, April 4, 1969 )

by Franco Tue Mar 18, 2003 00:00

attacked franco's forces, dpes that make them anti european