[abalone]

> Israel has no interest in Gaza, they just want them to stop trying to attack

This is false and one-sided. Likud, the ruling party in Israel, has in its platform an explicit denial of the right for a Palestinian state to exist west of the Jordan river.[1] Everything you've heard about Palestinians/Hamas denying Israel the right to exist is actually true about Israel as well towards Palestine. (In fact Hamas has stated they would respect a two-state solution; not the case for Likud.)

There are atrocities back and forth, for example "A month before [the murders of Israeli boys that set off the attack], two Palestinian boys were shot dead in the West Bank city of Ramallah."[2] However the scale of Israel's atrocities in military operations is massively larger, and the conditions they maintain in Gaza through sanctions and violence are unconscionable. One could argue the conditions are calculated to foment discontent and keep the conflict on the military field, because politically the settlements and occupation have no standing, as regularly condemned by the whole world in U.N. resolutions.[3]

[1] http://www.juancole.com/2014/08/charter-destruction-palestin...

[2] http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/25343-noam-chomsky-%7C-ni...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_UN_resolutions_con...

[gertef]

This comment fails to distinguish clearly the differing situations and attitudes in re West Bank vs Gaza. Israel (including Likud) is far along a path of disengagement from Gaza

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaz...

[abalone]

The International Criminal Court still recognizes Israel as the occupying power in Gaza "based on the scope and degree of control that it has retained over the territory of Gaza following the 2005 disengagement."[1]

[1] https://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/otp/OTP-COM-Article_53(1)-Re...

[YZF]

No it doesn't.

The linked article which is not a court ruling, it's a report from the "Office of the Prosecutor", says:

"While Israel maintains that it is no longer occupying Gaza, the prevalent view within the international community is that Israel remains an occupying power under international law, based on the scope and degree of control that it has retained over the territory of Gaza following the 2005 disengagement. In accordance with the reasoning underlying this perspective, the Office has proceeded on the basis that the situation in Gaza can be considered within the framework of an international armed conflict in view of the continuing military occupation by Israel. The analysis conducted and the conclusions reached would generally not be affected and still be applicable, if the Office was of the view, alternatively, that the law applicable in the present context and in light of the Israel-Hamas conflict is the law of non-international armed conflict. Given the crimes of possible relevance to the present situation, which are substantially similar in the context of both international and non-international armed conflicts, it is not necessary at this stage to reach a conclusive view on the classification of the conflict. Additionally, as the protection accorded by the rules on international armed conflicts is broader than those relating to internal conflicts, it seems appropriate, for the limited purpose of a preliminary examination, in cases of doubt, to apply those governing international armed conflicts."

So they're basically just discussing the context for this (whether the situation meets some legal criteria to get to the next stage, by the way it didn't). They say it's not really necessary to reach a conclusive view (i.e. at least the prosecutor has no conclusive view, not to mention the court) because it doesn't affect the outcome of this legal analysis.

[Udik]

(from Wikipedia, Gaza Strip, military occupation)

In his statement on the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict, Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur wrote that international humanitarian law applied to Israel "in regard to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the laws of war."[41] Amnesty International, the World Health Organization, Oxfam, the International Committee of the Red Cross, The United Nations, the United Nations General Assembly, the UN Fact Finding Mission to Gaza, international human rights organizations, US government websites, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and a significant number of legal commentators (Geoffrey Aronson, Meron Benvenisti, Claude Bruderlein, Sari Bashi and Kenneth Mann, Shane Darcy and John Reynolds, Yoram Dinstein, John Dugard, Marc S. Kaliser, Mustafa Mari, Iain Scobbie, and Yuval Shany maintain that Israel's extensive direct external control over Gaza, and indirect control over the lives of its internal population mean that Gaza remained occupied.

[YZF]

My point was not to debate the legal status of Gaza in international law. I'm sure there are various opinions and various agendas. My point was the statement made in the comment was false and the ICC has not ruled on this topic and I didn't want that false statement to stand and then possibly be repeated.

The situation on the ground is clear. The Palestinians (Hamas) control the internal area of Gaza. Israel is imposing a naval blockade. Israel controls the Israeli side of the Gaza-Israeli border and restricts traffic of people and goods. Egypt controls (for the most part) the Egyptian side of the Gaza/Egypt border and restricts traffic of people and goods.

For humanitarian and I guess legal reasons Israel provides some services and goods to Gaza, unlike what we've seen in Syria where a total siege is routinely used in warfare. This article itself is evidence that Israel does not maintain absolute control over the lives of the internal population of Gaza.

I think that anyone looking at the facts of the matter should be able to see that once Israel withdrew from Gaza the Palestinians had enough control over their own destiny. They certainly had enough control to build thousands of rockets and shell Israel. Or is the claim that Israel shelled itself?

I can also see why the exact legal situation is complex. Gaza used to be under Egyptian control before 1967. It's not recognized as a state by any country. Israel withdrew unilaterally without any agreement covering the transition.

[kirillkh]

So there are some persons and organizations who believe that Gaza is occupied. Sorry, but that doesn't make it true in my view.

[berntb]

Richard Falk worked for UNHRC -- infamous for being shanghaied by dictators that don't criticize each others, but instead complain about democracies.

Israel has been literally criticized a hundred times more than e.g. Sudan with a million rapes and a million murders (more?).

See e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Co...

(Also, Falk have been writing for Counterpunch and so on, you don't do that if you're not quite politically extreme.)

[serge2k]

> In fact Hamas has stated they would respect a two-state solution

Sure, but will they agree to actual terms? Terms that Israel won't instantly reject?

[shmulkey18]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant

The Charter identified Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine and declares its members to be Muslims who "fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors." The charter states that "our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious" and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories,[2] and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel.[3][4] It emphasizes the importance of jihad, stating in article 13, "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."[5]"

[abalone]

Likud platform of 1999:

a. “The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel.”

b. “Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem”

c. “The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.”

d. "Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel... The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting."[1]

So both parties are rejectionist in principle. However in practice Hamas has indicated they would accept a two state solution. Likud has not.[2]

[1] http://www.juancole.com/2014/08/charter-destruction-palestin...

[2] http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.587047

[YZF]

The Likud is not the "ruling party" in Israel. Israel's government is a coalition of multiple parties. The platform of any individual party does not equate to the official position of the state of Israel. Israel had right wing and left wing governments and the path towards a solution giving Palestinians control over the the west bank and Gaza goes back to Menahem Begin who was a prime minister from the Likud who signed a peace agreement with Egypt that included the path forward to solving the Palestinian conflict and the return of the Sinai peninsula to Egypt.

During the many years of this conflict Israel had right wing and left wing governments with various different approaches. Ehud Barak has offered Yasser Arafat a two state agreement very close to what John Kerry has recently described and was rejected [1]. Earlier while Rabin and Arafat were attempting to make progress towards peace Hamas was busy blowing up buses and malls with suicide bombers which eventually lead to the rise of the right, the assassination of Rabin and the collapse of the process.

EDIT: Also worth mentioning that the withdrawal of Israel from the Gaza strip which included tearing down Israeli settlements and evicting them forcefully, was done by Arik Sharon, prime minister from the Likud.

I don't think there's any factual basis to a comparison between the Likud party and Hamas. I'll agree there are definitely opinions in the Israeli right who feel strongly that the Palestinians should not be given their own state for various reasons. Some practical (see Gaza) and some religious/ideological. However that is not the official position of Israel. No doubt there is various political maneuvering going on but the source of the trouble is the Palestinians refusal, or inability, to negotiate in good faith and compromise something they've had many opportunities to do and their insistence of using violence as means of addressing their grievances.

The majority of the world is not fully democratic[2] (well, it's a mess) and doesn't share our values so decisions made in the UN by the "whole world" aren't exactly a yard stick of humanity. The UN is systematically biased against Israel. Where are the condemnations of US, Russian, Turkish involvements in Syria?

MORE on Israel's official position, one of many instances of Israel's willingness to make progress:

April 2003: A Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict[3]

May 2003: Israel accepts the roadmap[4]

You keep saying Hamas has accepted a two state solution but I haven't seen an official link. In fact Israel's insistence that the Palestinians accept its right to exist wouldn't be a problem if the Palestinians indeed accepted a two state solution.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Camp_David_Summit

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index

[3] http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/a%...

[4] http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/2003/Pages/Goverment%20m...

[abalone]

The U.N. votes are nearly unanimous, like 150-2, and include all the democratic states (apart from Israel and the U.S.) It's pretty clear what the democratic world thinks of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

As for the claim that Israel has supported a two-state solution under Barak's leadership:

"the Camp David proposals divided the West Bank into virtually separated cantons, and could not possibly be accepted by any Palestinian leader... After the collapse of these negotiations, Clinton recognised that Arafat’s reservations made sense, as demonstrated by the famous 'parameters', which, though vague, went much further towards a possible settlement... After that, high-level Israeli-Palestinian negotiators proceeded to take the Clinton parameters as 'the basis for further efforts,' and addressed their 'reservations' at meetings in Taba through January. These produced a tentative agreement, meeting some of the Palestinian concerns... Problems remained, but the Taba agreements went much further towards a possible settlement than anything that had preceded. The negotiations were called off by [Israeli Prime Minister] Barak, so their possible outcome is unknown."[1]

So the initial offer (separated cantons) was a bad faith offer designed to be rejected, and then Israel dropped the negotiations when it got fairer.

[1] https://chomsky.info/20041118/

[YZF]

Clinton blamed Arafat [1] and Arafat didn't even speak for Hamas. Could you quote some direct sources rather than someone with a strong political agenda like Chomsky. Let's look at the raw facts, not opinions.

Generally the countries one would consider the "free world" have consistently supported Israel's right to defend itself, including against Palestinian terrorism. [2] is just one example but I can find many more. Please provide a source for your claim that UN decisions against Israel are nearly unanimous. I can't find any specific stats but I highly doubt your claim. While there's a lot of political deal making behind the scenes anti-Israeli decisions generally leverage the majority of the non-democracies of this world.

Hamas is an organization that does summary executions of people suspected of being spies and drags them through the streets tied behind cars (I'll spare you the link). Throwing their fellow Palestinians from Fatah off the roofs (again I'll spare you the link, you can find it yourself). Conducting campaigns of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. Indiscriminate shelling of civilians and routinely using civilians as human shields. This organization is the source of suffering for both Israelis and Palestinians.

It's not that Israel is beyond reproach or always in the right but there's no comparison. How is "not getting a country with the lines that I want" justification for anything Hamas is doing anyways?

Please spend more time reading information from different sources about the facts and history of the conflict.

[1] https://www.clintonfoundation.org/main/news-and-media/statem...

[2] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelectio...

EDIT: Donno what pushed my buttons to get into this discussion but the Gaza situation specifically seems to be pretty clear cut. The Palestinians got their own mini-state within a small geographic region and they made their choices to have conflict where they could have not had one. The history of the entire Arab-Israeli conflict is almost irrelevant. The scale and type of Israeli responses to the happenings in Gaza can be criticized but the fact stands that Israel withdrew and let the Palestinians manage their own business and it turned out to be a complete mess which means the likelihood of this being replicated in other Palestinian areas is just about zero. The Palestinians had a chance to prove something and they proved the exact opposite. They can't blame Israel for that.

EDIT2: Doing a little more research into UN resolutions. Ignoring the question of bias vs. other world affairs it seems the pattern is as follows:

- Those Israeli related resolutions are generally proposed by non-free nations

- The US automatically supports Israel. Canada typically supports Israel. Next up in support seems to be Australia in my limited sample.

- The "non-free-world" overwhelmingly supports those resolutions.

- If the resolution is not too strong and just expresses overall regret over violence etc. etc. the EU will typically vote for it.

- If the language is strong or the resolution appears overly biased the EU will generally abstain. I think a lot of those stronger resolutions that still pass would not pass without the non-free world support.

So I don't think the statement that it's always Israel+US vs. the rest of the world stands to scrutiny. Also most resolutions are non-binding. Let's also not fool ourselves that nations vote according to some moral conscience (those that even have that to start with).

[berntb]

Regarding the killed children -- wasn't the people doing a revenge murder of a Palestinian teenager sentenced to long jail sentences when they got caught?

The Palestinian terrorists are declared martyrs, mural paintings are done, their relatives get a pension from PLO -- while caught Israeli murderers are sent to jail..?

It do seem like equivalent sides, as you claim... :-)

[justin66]

> The Palestinian terrorists are declared martyrs, mural paintings are done, their relatives get a pension from PLO -- while caught Israeli murderers are sent to jail..?

Judging from the public reaction in Israel to the manslaughter conviction of Elor Azaria (polling suggests something like 67% want him pardoned), some segment of the Israeli public isn't above sticking up for its murderers.

[mattip]

Yes things are getting worse, the cinfkuct is wearing patience thin, and, as of today, he had not been pardoned. But there will be no streets named after him, he will be dishonourably discharged from the military, and he will not be generally celebrated as a hero. He is viewed as yet another victim, except by some extremists who get a lot of screen time.

Now can we get back to discussing supporting the coding academy in Gaza?

[justin66]

Wow, yes. Point taken.

[cnlevy]

I personally want him pardoned because of the context (recurring knife attacks on military and civilians), but he is certainly not an hero in my view.

Being discreetly discharged from the army for miscondcuct is probably what would have happened if not for the filming that triggered a PUBLIC trial.

After all, the state gave him a weapon, and indicts him when he uses it ? Part of the responsibility is on the state itself.

There are precedents to these kind of incidents:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Miller_(filmmaker): The army did say that the soldier would be disciplined for violating the rules of engagement and for changing his account of the incident.

[berntb]

You are not contradicting my point. He is still going to jail.

The sympathy for due process of terrorists will wear thin in most democracies. Afaik, most countries with continuous terror problems throw out the law book.

This is a quite logical result, since the point of terror is to get a fear and horror reaction from the civilian population to influence them. Scared voters make politicians hysterical, so everything is done to stop the situation. (Democracies seems to be even worse here, since voters are more important than non democracies.)

Afaik, this goes for USA, Germany, Israel, Britain, Spain, etc. (I saw claims from some English guy that they did it different regarding IRA, then some other GB guy contradicted and listed some English laws. Let's call that example uncertain.)

[justin66]

> You are not contradicting my point. He is still going to jail.

Israel undeniably has a better and more principled legal system than whatever the Palestinians have under the occupation. It's admirable that they found this guy guilty in the face of public opinion.

Insofar as your "mural paintings" statement spoke to the cultural differences, I think it's important (and unbelievably sad) to note that the difference when it comes to acceptance of bloody murder is just a matter of degree. All the parties involved have been degraded by this conflict.

Another poster wrote that this kind of argument takes away from the discussion of the good that's being done there, and I believe he's right, so... :)

[berntb]

"just a matter of degree"? OK, let's look at it then:

Side A is officially antisemitic in their founding document (Hamas) and TV programs (even for children!); they literally took inspirations from the 3rd Reich. They condone murders of civilians (even children) and pay pensions to the family of killed murderers. They have expelled all members of side B. They persecute members of side B everywhere on the planet where both groups live in the same society.

Side B have racism from individuals, which is officially condemned by a democratically elected government. They throw murderers of civilians in jail. 20% (?) of the population in side B are really part of side A, with no expulsions (except once in a bad civil war, when both sides did it, almost 70 years ago).

And so on, there are lots of examples.

You can dismiss this as "just a matter of degree". But then note that there is also "just a matter of degree" in Celsius between Antarctica and Hawaii.

When do "double standards for different sides" go over the limit to the definition of stronger terms?

(Edit: If you're going to argue that persecution and hatred of Jews are excusable because of X, note that more Jews were expelled from the Muslim world than Palestinians that fled from the Nakba. And multiple times more land was stolen from them than the total area of Israel.)

[iblankm]

Why are we talking about Side A and Side B at all? Each of those is a vast overgeneralization. Israelis are diverse, as are Palestinians/Gazans. It's easy to make broad generalizations until you actually meet people on both sides and understand their human context.

Have you ever met a Gazan (outside of any military situation, if you're Israeli and had to serve)? If not, check this out since it may be the closest you can get... I don't think these people are ones you'd have any reason to dislike or want to punish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEJtZekhROE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f_w1aoJgO8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nAkx4n0yUU

[justin66]

> If you're going to argue that persecution and hatred of Jews are excusable because of X

If it seemed to you that anything I wrote intended to argue that persecution and hatred of anyone is "excusable because of X", this was rather a waste of time.

Which is of course a surprise, since discussion of the Palestinian conflict online is ordinarily so productive...