Making the world safe for democracy

[mrph]

Is Israel really any safer after using an airstrike to kill a quadriplegic old man, who was being pushed out of a mosque in his wheelchair when the missile hit?

I don't think so. If only because those are the terms in which most of the world's going to view it - and certainly most of the middle east. It seems like a deliberate attempt to pour petrol on the flames.

Yes, he was a hateful old bastard who was in favour of terrorism and spoke against the peace process (and the existence of Israel itself). But I still don't see how this helps. The damage he did was done with words, and his words didn't die with him. If anything, they've now gained weight.

Comments

Re: As for Osama...

[goth-tart.livejournal.com]

Thing is, what could you try Yassin for? He obviously played no physical part in the attacks

No, he didn't play a physical part but he instigated them. He founded Hamas in 1987 with the aim to, and I quote IRN here, "detroy the Jewish state". His method of doing this was to use the suicide bombers that Arafat had been training up since the 60s. Under UK laws, this would be categorised as incitement of terrorism or intent to cause injury.

I'm not sure, at this stage, why Israel let him out of prison in '97. I vaguely recall something about a pact with Hamas that they weren't going to carry out any more bombings, which of course they broke almost immediately. They have owned up to most of the bombings that we've heard about in the news over the past few years.

Sadly the emphasis on his frailty seems to be making most people sympathetic and the BBC's lack of facts aren't helping!

I wonder whether Hamas, and other similar groups, can be treated the same as the IRA though in terms of stopping their violence. I don't ever recall the IRA being suicide bombers - they were more about placing bombs in locations (I remember being caught up in a bomb scare in the V&A when I was about 8). I think the religious beliefs and the lump sum payments to families of suicide bombers are encouraging them to continue their work. They've been brainwashed since the late 1940s now - you're looking at about 3 or 4 generations-worth of Palestinians.

Re: As for Osama...

[mrph.livejournal.com]

According to the BBC he was released in exchange for two Israeli agents, who'd been captured while attempting to assassinate a Hamas leader. Unless there were strings attached, Israel couldn't really lock him up again on the same charges - ideally, they'd have needed evidence of things done since his release.

As for Hamas... I think the only people who can stop them are the Palestinians. That means finding ways to drain the swamp and cut off their popular support - which means there needs to be a non-violent way forward for them, so that people can honestly claim that violence is not the answer. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening while Sharon and Arafat are in power.

The religious element is a growing problem, too - but it is fairly new, and the original Palestinian groups were mostly political in nature (otherwise we'd never have seen leaders like Arafat). Remember that suicide bombings have only been used by Palestinians for the last decade, and that they started because they were so much more effective rather than for any overtly religious reason. I think that with the current resurgence in fundamental Islam - and the War against Terror - that's now changing fast, which is definitely a bad sign. Not sure how to address it, though.