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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (168055)	4/18/2003 3:40:19 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1573812

Interesting commentary from another forum: <<< Actually, the idea that Palestinian suicide bombers are 'terrorists' and thus 'immoral' is not that clear cut. Think of it like this: the Israeli army targets Hamas members, before, during and after they are actively engaged on combat missions. In other words, the IDF hits both pre-emptively and hunts people down after they have attacked Israel. I would argue that both are justified means in war - even if I disagree that the underlying motivation for the war is unjust. Since Israel is a conscript nation, everyone (except the religious zealots who are the cause of all the problems anyway) serve in the army. Thus everyone in Israel (except tourists) is, has been, or will be in the army. Even those who came to Israel too late pay taxes, which go in part to the army. If Israel can target those who finance and are involved with the Palestinian Intifada, pre-emptively and retrospectively, then why can the Palestinians not do the same? In other words - is the idea of an Israeli civilian an oxymoron? And if no one is a civilian and the occupation is immoral - is everyone a legitimate target by conventional weapons (the explosives in the suicide belt)? There are two problems with such an argument - refuseniks and children. Those under 17 have not served, and like refuseniks, may chose not to involve themselves in armed immoral actions like the rest of the nation. They thus remain civilians and illegitimate targets. To target those who have not had a chance to change their minds by 17 is to assume things about them before inflicting a fatal punishment, and this is morally dubious. Unfortunately, this cannot be used as a veto on suicide bombings if those belonging to these two categories are put down as collateral damage. Given the number of refuseniks past and present (circa 1000) out of a population of 5 million there is only a 1 in a 5000 chance of hitting a civilian. This is in fact a much better collateral damage ratio than that which Israel achieves when targeting Hamas or Jihad members, or even American/UK forces in the gulf. A few examples may serve to illustrate what I concede to be a controversial point: Last year, the IDF dropped a 1 tonne bomb on a 45 room apartment block in Gaza, the most densely populated area in the world. It killed one Hamas member and 23 civilians, including a 1 year old girl. It also constantly attacks Hamas members in cars, often with their wives, children and friends as passengers. The apartment block attack was called a military strike with heavy collateral damage. Last year, a Hamas suicide bomber blew himself up on a bus in the North West Bank carrying (if memory serves) 13 soldiers and 4 civilians. This was condemned around the world as an act of terrorism. If the situations were reversed, and Hamas blew up an Israeli apartment block with one soldier in it but 23 10 year olds, it would be called terrorism. But does anyone doubt that Israel would not target a bus carrying 13 Hamas militants, even if it might happen to have 4 non-Jewish co-passengers and call it a military strike with collateral damage? This exemplifies the double standard applied to such actions. Just recently, this was highlighted when an IDF bulldozer ran over an American peace activist (with the ISM), Rachel Corrie. She was protecting a house. Although some allege that the bulldozer was in fact fully aware that it was targeting Rachel as well as the house, the principle remains - she was put down as collateral damage. If Hamas blew up an illegal Jewish settlement and happened to catch a civilian inside under equally dubious circumstances, would the world media hesitate to condemn it as terrorism? If the West is to wage a war on terrorism, first it had better know what terrorism is - and not apply one standard to white Jews and another to brown Muslims. >>> forums.indigital.co.uk