Community Comment

A Warning to Hamas…

Posted by Dave

Jan. 8, 2009 5:32 a.m. • 33 comments

Good morning, Netizens…

In this morning’s David Horsey cartoon we see a hidden bit of truth. If you walk up to the biggest bully in the playground and punch him in the mouth, naturally he will hit you back with predictable results. You will end up on your back on the ground, and hardly anyone will fault the bully.

Hamas has been launching missiles at Israel for longer time than Israel has been responding. However, now that Israel has begun responding to the Hamas missiles raining down on their cities, it seems popular in some corners of the press to blame them for the resuilting chaos in Palestine.

The moral of the story is don’t pick fights you cannot win.

Dave

33 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

Bob on January 08 at 7:40 a.m.
Except of course it’s not that simple. Yet, having endured 8 years of Bush/Cheney and their black/white good v evil simpletonistic view of the world I can see how some have had their world-views so conditioned. Thankfully, those of us of the reality-based communities understand this whole conflict is somewhat more complex than a big bully metaphor might lead one to believe.

Dig a little deeper. The truth rarely is found, like a lost red mitten, on the top of the snowbank.
Bob on January 08 at 7:50 a.m.
As an aside, I need to start copyrighting this pithy little sayings I invent ;-)
Bob on January 08 at 7:51 a.m.
this = these

Can we have a PREVIEW function please??
terrymr on January 08 at 10:35 a.m.
Hamas would say they are mounting resistance to what they see as an occupying power - these disputes are never as black and white as they seem.

While we demand that the arab world respects the existence of israel; Israel has never once felt bound by the borders defined in the UN resolution which created it.

Both sides are failing to act appropriately and taking sides is pointless … get them in a room and bang their heads together.
Dave Laird on January 08 at 11:25 a.m.
Good morning, Bob and welcome back!

You wrote and I quote:

As an aside, I need to start copyrighting this pithy little sayings I invent ;-)

Unquote

Some of them are genuine keepers, Bob. Remember if you copyright something you CAN charge for their use, which might be a revenue source you hadn’t considered, huh? 8-)

Good to see you back…

Dave
Arch_Druid on January 08 at 11:28 a.m.
Terry MR, Hamas like the PLO has always declared itself to be a resistance to an occupying power because they refuse to recognize the state of Israel. But instead of working out political solutions that would enable both types of Semite societies to live in peace with one another, Hamas is a provocateur as the PLO had been in its time. It is about time that SOMEONE stood up for the nation of Israel. And “Dave” could have said more specifically the corners of the news media such as CNN too willing to condemn Israel for finally reacting after many moons of Hamas and etc. rocket attacks, suicide bombings and kidnappings. Yeah, unfortunately there has been quite a civilian death toll. But just how innocent are these people? When did they speak out against suicide bombings, rocket attacks and kidnappings that was to ultimately bring about retaliation? Didn’t hear a word, did you? Oh yeah, they’ll speak out now, but not against the terrorists who brought an entire people to this pass.
terrymr on January 08 at 12:56 p.m.
I don’t think there’s been any shortage of people standing up for Israel … the problem is like I said way to complicated to just take sides. What’s the solution ? Complete annihilation of the palestinians ? Who’s land was it before 1947 ? The partition of palestine was a bad solution to a problem that had existed for more than 50 years already.

Neither side is currently doing anything to help themselves - the attacks by israel aren’t going to make the palestinians any more accepting of israel, and the rocket attacks on israel are not going to dissuade it from attacking palestinians.

Israel has no qualms about launching attacks on neutral peacekeepers so nobody wants to try that solution any more.
Jeffrey_Grey on January 08 at 1:06 p.m.
I stand by my original sentiment: there are no good guys in this.

Hamas: If you sit in your living room firing a gun into your neighbor’s house, there will come a time when he will react violently. When that time comes, you simply can go running to the world community and try to paint yourself as the innocent victim. You aren’t.

Israel: If your neighbor is shooting bullets indiscriminately into your house, the time comes when you have to react to protect your loved ones.

However, you can’t burn your neighbor’s house to the ground with his wife and children inside and claim it was self defense. There’s such a thing as measuring your response. A casualty count of 10 Israelis versus 600 Palestinians is not measured. It’s not ‘reply’. It’s retribution. And once you cross the line and start dealing in retribution, you can’t go running to the world community trying to paint yourself as the innocent victim.

The Palestinians: This one is a little harder. But I can’t see ‘innocent victim’ being a good fit even for them. Let’s make it hypothetical, because children dying in the streets is hard to view dispassionately. Yet dispassion is what’s needed now. Now more than ever if this is ever going to end - and end it must.

Let’s say you’re sitting on you back porch one balmy summer evening and you notice your next door neighbor is setting up a rocket launcher aimed at … oh … let’s say Sacred Heart Medical Center. Can you in good conscience just shrug and say, “Hey, not my problem. I’m sure he has a good reason.” Or do you have a duty to do…*something*. Call the cops. Tell him to stop and if he won’t listen then make him. Something.

And if you don’t do something and if SWAT shows up after missiles away and your house gets shot up in the ensuing melee - okay, maybe SWAT over-reacted. But the fault isn’t *entirely* theirs.

There comes a time when silence gives assent and you pay have to pay the price for it.

There are no good guys in this and it’s high time the world community saw the facts - as painfully unpleasant as they are - for what they are.

Because this has to stop.
Jeffrey_Grey on January 08 at 1:09 p.m.
Terry,

“Who’s land was it before 1947?”

How far back do we go to answer that? For example: who built the Great Temple of Solomon? The PLO?

Everyone involved has a historical claim to the land so in the end what will asking that question get you?
Jeffrey_Grey on January 08 at 1:11 p.m.
Poor proof-reading. Sorry.

“When that time comes, you simply [can’t] go running to the world community and try to paint yourself as the innocent victim. You aren’t.”
terrymr on January 08 at 1:16 p.m.
So a people that left 1700 years prior, suddenly wanted their land back and that’s ok ? better give up your land to native americans or whoever owned it before that even.
Jeffrey_Grey on January 08 at 3:56 p.m.
Interesting.

So, historical ties to a region have an expiration date? What’s the time period for such things? 100 years? 1000? Where do we arbitrarily draw the line?

And how much contact with the region is sufficient to start the clock ticking? Do all the ancestors of the claimants have to leave? 100%? 75%? 50%? What’s the magical number? (Realizing that ‘Palestine’ has never been completely free of Jews. There have always been a few of them hanging around.)

Most importantly of all, under what circumstances does your exit start the clock? Does it only start ticking if you pack up and leave voluntarily? What happens if someone else with designs on your lands moves in and kicks you out? (Careful - this is a bit of a trick question. See… It could well be argued that leaving the place they called home wasn’t entirely the Jews’ idea. They had a little help from folks like the Arab Caliphates who set up shop starting around the 11th Century and soon were suggesting that Central Europe was lovely this time of year so why not hit the road? And if getting tossed out by someone who can show you the door and make it stick invalidates your ‘history’, what makes the Palestinians exempt from this doctrine when it’s Israel reclaiming their old stomping grounds?)

As I said, everyone staking a claim to the land these days can back that claim up with history. So what?
terrymr on January 08 at 4:37 p.m.
Yeah I was simplifying a bit … but in reality recorded history really lacks an independent israel with Jewish rule. It’s been under occupation forever. Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, British etc. At no time was the region ever an exclusively Jewish nation which seems to be an idea thats around 100 years old.
terrymr on January 08 at 7:57 p.m.
Not everybody in Israel supports their governments behavior either, this is an interesting article : http://www.hagada.org.il/eng/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=251
Jeffrey_Grey on January 09 at 5:52 a.m.
Terry,

Respectfully, I think you are falling into the ‘easy solutions’ trap a little yourself.

Let’s assume for a moment that we really want to (or can, for that matter) determine who has the best claim to the land currently occupied by the State of Israel.

I would assume further that having made this determination, we award that land to the folks we decide are the rightful owners. (If not, what’s the point of getting into this debate over who has the best claim to the pink slip in the first place?)

So… Okay… We’ve figured out who the best claimant is.

What happens to the loser?

“Go back to where you came from”?

I would remind you that Israel has existed for a little over 60 years now. Whole generations of Israelis have been born in Israel and whole generations of Palestinians have been born in those dreadful refugee camps. Now maybe we can get the Palestinians out of the camps in favor of land in Israel. That would be a good goal to aim for, no question about it.

But what do you do with the Israelis currently occupying that land? The same land where they, their parents and maybe even their grandparents were born and raised?

Where do they ‘go back to’?
ChefGus/ John Olsen on January 09 at 10:50 a.m.
Jeff et al.. if this llnk works to Sri Lanka news it is an article with maps of the history from the Ottoman empire forward with the likely biased picture of the Jewish state being attacked from the get go with Jihad… perhaps someone with the Arab perspective can refute this?? It seems to me that a Large part of the problem is that the Arab “States” did very little to integrate the palestine refugee’s and were the very first to put their brother’s and sisters in to concentration/refugee camps… and it went down hill from there…. if the oil rich arabs were to invest some resources in training and factories for this disgruntled and put upon group of people it could would go a lot better…

http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2008/11/35679_space.html
thawtfulreader on January 10 at 6:16 p.m.
“if the oil rich arabs were to invest some resources in training and factories for this disgruntled and put upon group of people it could would go a lot better…”

Generally the elite leaders of most arab countries prefer to invest in heavily US taxpayer subsidized weaponry like F-16s, or, in vastly decadent architectural wonders/freaks like malls with artificial made snow and ski slopes, rotating skyscrapers, or other crazy stuff. See UAE, SA, and Dubai.