There are no gaza "militants" only the barbaric enemy
Let's see; in some cases Israel targets rocket-launching sites. This can be viewed as legitimate self-defense.
But in other cases Israel hits cars in crowded streets, or houses in heavily populated neighborhoods, just because a "militant" is known to be inside the car or the house. "Collateral damage" is usually severe. In my view this can't be justified under any circumstances.
According to the APF story most of those killed since November were "militants." Israel cannot have carried out too many strikes that produced a lot of collateral damage for the sake of one militant. Identify some armies for me that have done better in recent times.
The Chinese army in the Tibet, for instance -- they're not killing "militants," and civilian bystanders in the process, every day.
Of course, Tibetans are not fighting back the opressing army. This may have to do with the fact that the Chinese are bringing progress and development to the region, having built the highest railroad in the world in it. This compares favorably with the Israeli-only roads that Israel builds on the West Bank.
your analogies dont make any sense...the barbaric primitive savages hamitic arabs are firing rockets into israel , attempting on a daily basis to kill innocent civilians by the use of suicide bombers and throwing rocks at civilians within israel.
How can you seriously say by any stretch of whatever you consider to ba an imagination that tibetans, who are being invaded by the chinese are in any way shape or form similiar to the jew killers in and around israel?????
If Tibet is quiet now, isn't that because all resistance was crushed years ago? Wikipedia has an interesting discussion of the number of Tibetans killed during the Great Leap Forward. Three proposed totals are 1.2 million, 800,000 and 400,000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet
You said "in recent times," and the Grat Leap Forward was 40 years ago. Also, the Great Leap Forward was not a repression of the Tibetans, but a crazed policy that killed tens of millions all over China (your figures for the Tibet, though, are hotly disputed). Since then, the country has learned from its mistakes and is now on its way to development. You forgot to quote the paragraphs from Wikipedia about the dramatic increase in the living standards of the Tibetans under the iron-fist, but enlightened, Chinese oppression.
Why did we end up talking about the Tibet? Ah, yes, you challenged me to identify an Army that does better than the IDF. But actually that's not the point. The point is that certain bad things the IDF do are necessary for self-defense, but others aren't, and there's no justification to keep doing those that aren't.
For instance, an Israeli soldier protecting Jewish children who hurl stones at Palestinian girls on their way to school is not necessary for Israel's survival and is wrong, and the fact that Saudi Arabia does much worse things is no excuse not to correct that behavior.
[... ] WHY DONT YOU LOOK AT EVERY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND [Edited by YG]
The point is that certain bad things the IDF do are necessary for self-defense, but others aren't, and there's no justification to keep doing those that aren't . . . the fact that Saudi Arabia does much worse things is no excuse not to correct that behavior.
The point is also that Israel is subject to constant attacks on its legitimacy, attacks that are not similarly directed at countries with far worse records on human rights. Israel is an idealistic democracy which has been engaged in a very bitter and seeming endless struggle with fanatical enemies. The Hamas charter, the founding document of the democratically elected government of Gaza, features claims that originated with Nazi propaganda: Jews are responsible for the French and Communist revolutions, Rotary Clubs and Freemasons are a Jewish plot, etc.
Israel is probably going to withdraw having taken some action to weaken Hamas, but essentially leaving Hamas in power and the ongoing threat of Qassams in place. I don't think there are many countries with Israel's military might that would do that or that would be expected to do that, and that would be accused of "war crimes" afterwards. What is more amazing is that a major factor in its military restraint is pressure from its own left in the name of humanitarianism.
Not that matters so much, but my point about Tibet is that the dirty work of military brutality was accomplished and then Police State brutality took over. That isn't a reason to think the military became less brutal. We would have to observe it in action.
A more nuanced view would take into account that Israel has acted in bad faith, injecting population into its illegal settlements even as it negotiated the final status of those very settlements. Or that it demolishes houses because they didn't have a building permit, but at the same time denies building permits to those Palestinians who ask for them, thus creating an impossible situation in which there's no way to accomodate the growing population in the territories.
In any event, if Israel is an idealistic democracy, why doesn't it stop the settlers from attacking and killing Palestinian farmers for the grave sin of trying to harvest their olives? Those fanatical settlers could be tried and jailed at zero cost in defensive terms, and Israel would project an image of fairness toward the occupied population.
The truth is that Israel CAN'T stop the settlers, because the settler ideology --not leftwing humanitarianism, as you would naively have it-- is what is setting Israel's agenda.
The truth is that Israel CAN'T stop the settlers, because the settler ideology --not leftwing humanitarianism, as you would naively have it-- is what is setting Israel's agenda.
The Gaza-pullout shows that settler ideology is certainly not setting Israel's agenda. It's too obvious to argue about.
As most analysts concur, the Gaza pullout was done mostly to strengthen the settlements on the West Bank. Since the pullout, more Israelis have been settled on the West Bank than were eradicated from Gaza.
If the settlers are not setting Israel's agenda, why doesn't Israel stop them from exerting brutality against Palestinians: that's the question to answer.
I don't think the overall picture on the West Bank is so one-sided. In any event, there are policies that settlers advocate. There are policies that you advocate. And there are Israel's actual policies. If those distinctions don't mean anything to you, then your views are extreme.
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