Is throwing a rock punishable by death in Israel? Do criminals not have the right to a trial?

Don't bother, he's just trying to troll.

I can never keep track.

It's not so much a crime as it is bad policy in general to throw things at heavily-armed soldiers while they are touring an area known for insurgency and violence. And of course, the Palestinians *know* this - provoking violent reactions by the IDF is the whole point! The Palestinian leadership has been relying on this kind of tactic for years: they take young, impressionable, stupid people, get them to do something dangerous, then film them getting killed. Make a press release, cry for the cameras, move on to the next martyr; it's the way the war in Israel has been waged for decades now.

As DQL points out below, the situation is terrible on each side. The IDF should not be murdering unarmed civilians - and, in fact, legally speaking it CANNOT do this, which is why the IDF spokesmen have been so keen to argue that the Colonel acted in self-defense. If he did not act in self-defense, and it can be shown that he did not, then he will be arrested and court-martialed, joining the nearly 2,000 soldiers incarcerated (by the Israeli government itself) for committing serious criminal offenses. As well he should!

At the same time, we - the passive, non-Israeli, non-Palestinian observers - have to maintain our objectivity and keep in mind what we are really seeing here. This is an angry young person committing suicide-by-cop, in order to fuel a highly-sophisticated, highly-cynical propaganda machine.

SOLRO REALLY CARES ABOUT THE PALINNSTIANS

what the fuck was that kid doing there anyway its israel not palestine

SO...the IDF...by killing the rock-throwers...is playing right into their hands?

Who really has the power in that sort of situation?

>> Who really has the power in that sort of situation?

ell, contrary to the narratives which we are sometimes encouraged to believe, situations like this rarely have clearly-demarcated power relationships. After all, how does one define "power"? Depending on what criteria is used to measure power, the answer to your original question may change.

In this particular instance, I'd argue that we could say both the Israeli state and the Palestinian leadership have "power", each in their own respective ways. The people who do not have power, are the young victim and the Colonel provoked into killing him.

Actually, contrary to your assertion, there *are* clear power differentials, and "how you choose to define it" doesn't enter into the question.

Israel clearly has more power, and they get to dictate the rhythms of the conflict and many of its overarching themes.

The problem is that rather than approaching the conflict constructively and with an honest desire to resolve the situation, the Israelis take the position of ALL THE SETTLEMENTS, ALL THE TIME, because they're children. Not surprisingly, the Palestinians take issue with this approach, and resist in various ways. Their resistance isn't terribly effective, which is pretty much the textbook definition of "low power".

No, that is only the case from a limited perspective and within a narrow definition of the word "power".

Israel has a higher capacity for coercive force. They are able to leverage violence far more efficiently, and far more effectively, than their Palestinian counterparts. However, this is the only true advantage the Israelis have.

The Israelis do NOT "get to dictate the rhythms of the conflict and many of its overarching themes"! As Binro so astutely points out, this clip is a perfect example of how, in this sense of the word, "power" is actually held by the Palestinians. It is not the IDF who choose the time, place, and nature of the engagement; it is the Palestinians. The IDF (like the Americans in Vietnam) is locked into a constant cycle of observe and react, their responses feeding into a war for hearts-and-minds that is none too kind for Jews. The Palestinians, realizing their own limitations, have developed a kind of insurgent aikido; using the strength of the IDF against them. Turning the Israelis' "power" - that is, their capacity to inflict violence - into a liability... all at the cost of seemingly senseless and poorly-understood deaths, like the one in this clip.

This is one of the essential factors governing asymmetric warfare, and a big part of the genius of Yasser Arafat.

Objecting to this doesn't, but defending the shit Palestine pulls while shitting all over Israel certainly does.

They're both fucking evil and kill each other for the dumbest reason there is (religion) but you literally can't have a neutral discussion on this without a moron on one side or the other either calling you an anti-semite or a zionist shill.

"They're both fucking evil and kill each other for the dumbest reason there is (religion)" you don't actually believe that do you? Like that the whole cause of strife is just a religion thing?

Yup

They're not really "new" Nazis. The Palestinian movement was founded by old-school Nazi-sympathizers, such as Haj Amin al-Husseini, Hassan al-Banna, and Nasser. "New" isn't really an accurate descriptor; they're more like OG Nazis.

Also, I'm pretty sure this poor kid had nothing to do with the Nazis, at least not directly. At worst, he's a youth conscript being forced to fight for the streets of Berlin.

Don't be mean, SP.

yeah so thanks a lot for doing my job EvilHomer.
thanks.

On the other hand, Israel is nice to keep around to when we need a scarecrow to bring the Middle Eastern regimes in line, like we have Republicans. Netenyahu is like a Captain Planet villain we have on speed dial, and it's nice to have someone to point at when we need to be bastards without us being the bastards.

If we keep him long enough, we might be able to swing a Russian/Israeli conflict that solves the problem of both. Russia can go broke watching us no longer pay Israel to be genocidal maniacs. We could seriously win on that if China stays out of it.

Let's keep them both, though it really does suck when they're in idle, they kill each other uselessly. We need to recognize Palestine so we can play them differently than Israel, and give Israel another target that doesn't make us money.

Definitely Russia.

Yep, I'm siding with the Israeli/Russian war as a new profit motive for America. Let's do it.

Why the hell do you think Israel isn't in NATO anyway? Cha-ching!

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Oh shit, I overloaded EvilHomer's rhetoric buffer.

How do you reboot this thing?

My rhetoric buffer is calibrated to respond differently to a variety of distinct rhetorical styles. The bullshit buffer is set for a very low tolerance threshold - but it's OK! You got Rainbow Dash'd, which is considered an honor in some societies.

You see, that's my whole point, it's all bullshit, but I knew I could count on you to miss the point, EvilHomer. Maybe in your fantasy land Russia is a utopia that will save the Palestinians, but we have to live in the real world here. Russia is an evil menace and only Israel has the power to keep them out of the Middle East while defending their Palestinian wards like Batman defends Robin from the Joker. Russia obviously wants war with Israel, otherwise they'd be paying us more protection money, so I really see no way that Israel can avoid a pre-emptive strike on Moscow to save us from Communism.

You're not a commie, are you?

No, I get your point, and it's one that plenty of other people here - myself, DQL, baleen, etc - make as well. "It's all bullshit" - only it's not really ALL bullshit, and technically speaking even those parts which are bullshit are not entirely bullshit, as the best bullshit has elements of the truth mixed in (e.g. this "murder" is largely bullshit, but it is still a murder and it is still a terrible thing for the IDF soldiers to have done)

BUT

Your central thesis, if indeed you intended it to be this way or if instead your thesis was just a happy coincidence arising by random chance - i.e. that we are all of us guilty of some form of disingenuity - is a good one. What I object to, and what triggered the Rainbow Dashening, was not the *message*, but the *rhetoric* surrounding the message; specifically, the blatant bullshittery. You know full well that there is no such person as Kim Jong Netenputin. No one can "eat" warcrimes; that is a strictly meaningless phrase. Republicans have nothing to do with this. And *obviously*, and I am not joking about this by the way, the best way for us (meaning Americans) to "make the most money" is to keep doing exactly what we're doing - that is to say, giving massive amounts of foreign aid to hostile Middle Eastern regimes, which in turn creates a greater demand for weapons systems in Israel, weapons systems which we can then turn around and sell to the IDF.

People like George HW Bush and Hillary Clinton aren't stupid. We do what we do, not because we're insane, but because what we do works - at least, from the perspective, and according to the interests, of those who are in power.

Also, Batman doesn't fucking defend Robin from the Joker!!! That analogy doesn't work on any level, whether as an honest description of Israeli policy, a sarcastic inversion meant to be interpreted satirically, or as just some kind of warped wishing-game.

http://media.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2008/11/05/batman_430-1b5 1b8f7b145fa35f0bbd2f9fb6d5c48fc505050-s6-c10.jpg

Incidentally, I just started a new game of Crusader Kings II. This time around, I am playing as a Jewish banking family from Venice. It is still early yet, but my long-term goal is to recapture the Holy Land and form the Kingdom of Israel; when I do so, do you think I should put all the Levantine Arab to deaths, or let them stay if they promise to convert to Judaism?

It's a serious dilemma, because in my last game, a Norse Viking world-conquest, I wound up having to publicly execute something like sixty Arabs after conquering Andalusia, due to the sheer size of Muslim families and the limit on the number of prisoners you can hold before your own family's birthrates start to plummet.

Whew, you're back to normal. I thought I would have to reinstall all the dll's.

Yeah sorry, I had just gotten done reading the latest news on Nick Bravo's prison sentence, and I was a little stunned.