0 Responses to “McCain Began”

1. Joe says:

   January 15, 2009 at 9:12 am

   Those “brave” Hamas freedom fighters. How did Palestinian society decend into such chaos. Salidin would be rolling in his grave, but of course Salidin was not Palestinian (he was Kurish).
2. LogicMan says:

   January 15, 2009 at 9:14 am

   That was cute JG, but you have to go by results, not just intentions. If a guy intends to kill but fails to do so, and another guy kills inadvertently, guess which guy gets arrested and charged? Hamas has killed a small number of Israelis and we now have 1,000 dead in Gaza. If we start punishing people for their intentions while we give a free pass to others despite of their deeds, it is a whole new system of justice, one you don’t want.
3. Alexander Almasov says:

   January 15, 2009 at 9:22 am

   Great logic, yeah. As if attempted murder were not a crime under all formal systems of justice.
4. Jason says:

   January 15, 2009 at 9:23 am

   Of course, your argument would have more weight if Israel weren’t occupying Gaza and illegally settling Palestinian land.

   Then add these comparisons to your post:
   Unemployment rate: Israel 7%, Gaza 35%
   Infant mortality rate: Israel 4 deaths per 1,000 live births; Gaza 19 deaths per 1,000 live births.
   Life expectancy at birth: Israel 81 years, Gaza 72 years
   GDP per capita: Israel $27,000; Gaza and West Bank $1,000

   So what could be making those dang Arabs so angry, right?
5. Coconut Juice says:

   January 15, 2009 at 9:23 am

   The pro-Israel crowd needs to learn that the argument of “we’re better than Hamas” isn’t very convincing.
6. Jason says:

   January 15, 2009 at 9:25 am

   Ever notice that Alexander Assinine only comments on other people’s comments and never has anything of substance to contribute?
7. Rick says:

   January 15, 2009 at 9:32 am

   Talk about disproportionate!
8. J. G. Thayer says:

   January 15, 2009 at 9:32 am

   you have to go by results, not just intentions.

   Why, LogicMan? Why are you insisting on punishing Israel for being better at both offense and defense, and rewarding the Palestinians for being incompetent?

   I’ll repeat a question I asked earlier. At one point in the current fighting, Palestinian rockets had killed one Israeli and two Palestinians (sisters aged 8 and 13, as I recall.) Would a “proportionate” response by Israel have been to kill a Palestinian, then two Israeli children?

   Hamas has vowed to exterminate Israel, and is doing everything it can to achieve that. I don’t particularly think it makes sense to wait until they can have a statistically high chance of achieving that before taking them seriously.

   J.
9. J. G. Thayer says:

   January 15, 2009 at 9:34 am

   Jason, maybe it’s because he finds the original articles to be perfect and complete in and of themselves, and need no addition… but the criticisms are sorely in need of correcting.

   As the author of one of those articles, my ego rather likes that theory.

   J.
10. mds123 says:

    January 15, 2009 at 10:02 am

    umm, jason – israel hasn’t ‘occupied’ gaza for over 3 years…
11. Gord says:

    January 15, 2009 at 10:05 am

    Jason: Your initial comment to JG’s post was unintentionally hilarious. Thanks for the laugh. How to stop the Jihad? Set up a job bank. Got it.
12. Tzvi ben Rachmiel says:

    January 15, 2009 at 10:47 am

    Jason…Please explain how Israel is an occupying force in Gaza? Second, here are a few statistics that you’ve overlooked: Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have received $161 per person per year compared to $68 per person/year under the Marshall Plan. Life expectancy in Gaza is 72 (as you cite)…but compare that to Russia (65 yrs) or India (69 yrs). Also, infant mortality rate in Gaza is lower than Iran (36 deaths/1,000), India (32 deaths/1,000), and Egypt (28 deaths/1,000). The brutal truth, which you conveniently neglect to mention, is that the Palestinians haven’t made building a society a priority; they’re more interested in destroying Israel.
13. Tzvi ben Rachmiel says:

    January 15, 2009 at 10:55 am

    LogicMan…you’re dead wrong on the issue of “intent” to kill. Articles 2(4)-(5) of The International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism extend liability to all those who: attempt to kill innocent civilians. Also, The International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings makes it a crime to bomb public places with the intent to kill civilians.
14. lester says:

    January 15, 2009 at 11:01 am

    yawn. BORING
15. Tzvi ben Rachmiel says:

    January 15, 2009 at 11:03 am

    Jason…One last point that can’t go uncontested: You blithely say that Israel is illegally occupying Palestinian land. On what legal basis to you draw that conclusion? Stephen Schwebel, formerly President of the International Court of Justice, notes that a country acting in self-defense may seize and occupy territory when necessary to protect itself. Schwebel also observes that a state may require, as a condition for its withdrawal, security measures designed to ensure its citizens are not menaced again from that territory. No one doubts that Israel seized the West Bank during a war of self-defense.

    According to Eugene Rostow, a former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs in the Johnson Administration, Resolution 242 gives Israel a legal right to be in the West Bank. The resolution, Rostow noted, “allows Israel to administer the territories” it won in 1967 “until ‘’a just and lasting peace in the Middle East’’ is achieved.”

    If you wish to refer to the West Bank, a more appropriate and legal term would be disputed territories. There is nothing illegal about Jewish presence there.
16. LogicMan says:

    January 15, 2009 at 11:15 am

    #3 Alexander and #13 Tzvi
    Fair enough. An attempt to kill IS a crime but I was talking about intentions, not attempts. And we can agree that Hamas stated intentions are way bigger than its attempts.
17. The New Centrist says:

    January 15, 2009 at 11:17 am

    “If a guy intends to kill but fails to do so, and another guy kills inadvertently, guess which guy gets arrested and charged?”

    Um, I’m not a lawyer but I think the first guy would be charged with attempted *murder* and the other would, at the most, be charged with second-degree manslaughter. In many cases where someone is inadvertently killed, there are no charges filed.

    And you call yourself “LogicMan”?

    Jason, your statistics lack context. First, Israel is not occupying Gaza. Israel removed all settlements from Gaza a few years ago. Second, those statistics must be viewed in light of the high volume of aid (monetary and otherwise) provided to Palestinians over the past five decades. Where did all that money go? If it had been spent prudently, the Palestinians would be in a much better situation today. Instead, it was squandered.

    As is so often among those of us who live in the U.S. (on the left and right) we fail to see people in the so-called Third World as having agency. We focus too much on exogenous factors and not enough on endogenous ones. Simply stated, their actions must be in response to something we have done. This creates an extremely skewed perception of why people behave the way they do and it leads to disastrous policy.
18. Tzvi ben Rachmiel says:

    January 15, 2009 at 11:36 am

    LogicMan: The only thing preventing Hamas terrorists from achieving their stated intention (“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” Hamas Covenant Preamble) is the lack of better technology. What sane country would wait around and allow their mortal enemy to acquire the means to achieve their obscene ends? NOBODY
    Take Hamas at their word…visit memri.org to see a video of Hamas leaders’ rabid anti-Semitism and base barbarianism.
19. Maine's Michael says:

    January 15, 2009 at 11:59 am

    Hey ‘LogicMan’, time for a new nickname.

    How about ‘idiot’?
20. Grumpy Old Man says:

    January 15, 2009 at 12:34 pm

    This post is an apologia for an odious campaign. Who believes this Zionist tripe these days?

    Expel, blockade, bomb and shell a population, and call it self-defense?

    (Deep breath for self-censorship).
21. JPK says:

    January 15, 2009 at 12:57 pm

    Hoorah for Israel –

    21 -Censor yourself…please! Dopey Old
22. taxpayer says:

    January 15, 2009 at 1:15 pm

    Have you heard the one about Why are there no Arabs on Star trek?
23. Jonas Menchik says:

    January 15, 2009 at 1:19 pm

    Grumpy Old Man’s Dictionary.

    definitions — population — group of people used as human shields for genocidal soldiers to send rockets at civilian population in Israel.

    self-defense – right of action to stop violence, permitted by everyone except Jews.

    Zionist tripe – facts that can not be challenged through logic or facts, must be ridiculed.
24. Howard Cohen says:

    January 15, 2009 at 1:21 pm

    The equivalency argument makes no sense. First of all, the residents of Gaza have never been independent. The area has been occupied by either the Turks, the British, the Egyptians, or the Israelis for several centuries. Additionally, Israel ended its occupation in 2005. If the Arabs have a life that does not match Israel’s why should that be Israel’s fault? What’s more, the life of the residents of Gaza improved by every measure under Israeli occupation. This situation is indeed a human catastrophe but put the blame where it belongs. The Arabs have been offered statehood repeatedly and the offer has been repeatedly rejected. It is criminal that the people in Gaza should still be refuges.
25. chuck martel says:

    January 15, 2009 at 1:35 pm

    How many Arabs can dance on the head of a pin?
26. Duesa says:

    January 15, 2009 at 1:38 pm

    “Intent” is the key that has goaded Anti-Semitism. It has always been the Zionist infiltrators, and unless they are weeded out from among peoples that would otherwise cohabit in peace, the war with no winners will perpetuate.

    http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/antisemitism/zionismpromotes.cfm
27. From Inwood says:

    January 15, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    I think that trolls take up a disproportionate amount of space in the comments to each thread on this Blog.

    Intentionally.