Ifat Glassman

The glass shelve in front of her is above her head, and closer to the viewer than she is. Since we are looking at the room from above (in an angle of about 45 deg) it looks below her waists. The shelve itself doesn't reflect light, only the tip of it, because that's the kind of glass shelves that I am familiar with: The kind that only the tip is not see-through. Another detail that is hard to notice is the ice formed on the shelve in the top left corner, next to the air conditioner. Usually flowers are kept at a really low temperature... As for "sky of gold": The thing that is connecting the buildings is a bridge. As for "Celebrating life": it's one of my favorites too

Thanks Cnqwst. Those are glass shelves. if you look to the sides you'll see flowerpots placed on them. The one that crosses the woman's body below the waist simply has nothing standing on it, so only the edge of the shelve is visible. I hope someday that I will have a scanned version of this painting. What you see now is a photograph done with a digital camera. The result is pretty good but the problem with it is that it makes the lines of the paintings less sharp, and fine details get lost. I'm working on getting a better photo of it. once I have it I'll give the link here...

Marc K. , thank you for the link to that thread. It helps a lot because this is one of the things in the basis of this argument. I read Ayn Rand's words about "The Morality of War and Civilian Casualties", and I have several problems with it. First of all, it is too short, and doesn't cover up everything that needs to be covered up, as I will explain shortly. Secondly is about responsibility from passivity. A person is responsible from passivity only if they had a way of objection that did not mean the annihilation of their supreme values. In each case the answer to what a rational person should do depend on the proper hierarchy of values that a Rational person ought to have, and on the options of action that are open to that individual. For example: No one should ethically "compel" a man to watch his family get hurt if the government is threatening him to either "fight for the army or have your family killed". To not neglect the long term context of this (a government and a war are not started overnight) I will say that this hypothetical person was very active in a movement that planned to overthrow the government. Now, the consequence of this is an innocent man who is fighting in a bad army, for a cause he despises, to preserve a higher value for him. While I would not hesitate to kill him if he was fighting against my country, I would not say that he is morally responsible. I am aware that I took a very extreme example, that is not very likely, but this example should be considered nonetheless, when we discuss moral responsibility, for better understanding of it. It seems to me that some people here have the attitude of "They are all guilty, simply because they live there". That is not true, and children are the most simple example of this. In the case of a dictatorship, Ayn Rand considers the actions of the citizens as follows: "If some people put up with dictatorship—as some do in Soviet Russia and as they did in Germany—they deserve whatever their government deserves." However - she doesn't say what does it mean to "put up with". Obviously, overthrowing a dictatorship would mean a risk to that person's values. Since Objectivism is not expecting a rational man to act against his proper hierarchy of values, the question that needs to be asked is what are the values that are at stake (or can be gained) with each action that a person is taking, and what is the proper choice between those values. Or in other words what should be considered as "passivity" or "putting up with it" and what should be considered a self sacrifice? Can anyone give a concrete example of what a citizen of North Korea, who has a family and no other specialities other than being a writer do? At what point will his actions be considered as "putting up with it", and at what point can we say that he is doing enough and he is not morally responsible? And what are the values involved (for a rational man in this position)? As for the article being too short, and too general: There are many different cases of violation of rights by a government, and the article is very general, and does not consider the fact that there is a variety of situations: Given the fact that a man's country is attacking another country, what should a rational man do? Given that a man's country is allowing slavery, what should a rational man do? Given the fact that a man's country is giving away money for spreading a certain religion, what should a rational man do? The answers to all these questions is not unanimous, and should be considered individually, and according to the context. In any case different values (for that man) are involved, different rights are violated, in different degrees, and the context for such hypothetical rational person can be different too (He might be married with children or single, his workplace and the people he know and his abilities to object can vary etc). Even if we are talking about the violation of right to life of citizens of another country, we cannot logically generalize the answer to all of the different situations possible by concluding "All citizens of a country that allow aggression are guilty guilty guilty and let's kill them all" (and please correct me if I'm wrong in interpreting that this is the meaning of targeting civilian populations as a military tactic). For example, the citizens of Lebanon: The money they pay to the government is not going to fund weapons of the Hesbollah. Hesbollah is like a foreign force among them, that differs greatly in ideology and lifestyle from a big part of the population. Should we target those people, who are capitalists, freedom lovers, Because they allowed their government to allow Hesbollah to function in their territory? Or should we try to use them to defeat Hesbollah, which they would be happy to do? This example clearly demonstrates that a blind "They are all guilty let's kill them all" attitude is dangerous and inefficient. Instead of killing the population, a better way would be to use them as a fighting force against their government. How come no one here has thought of this option? The other question that I have, if we acknowledge the fact that innocents in war do exist (children), is why should we not make an effort to avoid hurting them? If we put a limit to what a person can do in self defense in a society, why shouldn't we put this limit in case of individuals of different countries? (by that I am repeating an old question of mine which I haven't got an answer for yet).

On second thought, I realized that something was wrong in what I said. What was wrong is that Israel was still at war even after the territories were taken. The reason it was a war was the fact that most of the Arab population (or at least a significant enough part of it, from a possible damage to Israel viewpoint, and from a viewpoint of the need to enforce law in those areas) did not recognize Israel's right to exist, they did not respect the Jew's right to life. They have demonstrated it many times. The rules in war and in peace are completely different. In wartime a country should not make a separate trial to each individual before using defensive force against a mob (or some form of army). In times of peace a country is obligated to protect the rights of all people living within it's borders. So our basic discussion should be whether or not the condition between the Palestinians and the Israelis can be considered as war or not, and what were the reasons for that: There is a difference if the Arabs resisted the fact that their rights were trampled on, or if they fought for annihilation of Israel. And we have to back up each claim we make with evidence. Here is the definition of war: Now I need to go over the the different periods in history and decide if we were in a condition of war, and what was the purpose of the Palestinians in each act of aggression.

The right to property is the right to own (or to keep, and decide about) the products of one's work. What about land? A peace of land by itself was not created by human beings, and therefor people cannot claim to own a land without processing it in some way (building on it etc) and outside a method of exchanging and claiming ownership that is acceptable on society. When people settle in an unsettled territory for the first time, they first have to agree of some method to divide the land among themselves to prevent anarchy (=I have more guns therefor I get to keep this land). This means that an individual who wishes to settle in that place would have to comply with the method the majority has agreed on. He will be acting against the local law if he simply occupies a certain land while ignoring the rules that were set up to ensure fair division of the land. As much as I would love to build myself a house in the middle of Yosemite, I would justify the rangers that would soon come to evacuate me . I do not have the right to settle anywhere I feel like, and claim ownership (And Yosemite is owned by the state of California, not by any individual). Moreover, once a country already exists, there might still be territories that no one has built on yet. Is your stand that whomever gets there first has the right to build in those areas, without a permission from the government? Such a method would mean anarchy and the use of force to get lands. Here is a simple example: Suppose there is a river flowing through the country. And throughout the river people are exploiting the river for different purposes (to produce power, to cool down the machines of the factory, to swim in, to build a hotel next to it etc). Now suppose I settle in a land next to the river, and I start building a dam, or to divert the path of the river, for my own purposes. According to the definition of the right to property nobody owns the river. Therefor the government supposedly don't have the right to tell me what to do on my territory, because supposedly I didn't violate anyone's rights. Do you see why I am saying that a government must have a certain involvement in the issue of owning land? and the government must have a well defined method for commerce with lands, and on certain occasions dictate what a person can or cannot do with his land. The interference must be minimal, to ensure fair use and fair ownership of lands, nothing more. So to go back to my question about the Arabs living in Israel (in the territory that was meant to belong to "Israel") when it was declared: The conclusion from what you said is that the division of the British Mandate to Israel and Palestine (note that the division was based on race, or origin) should have had secondary validity after prior ownership of land. i.e, if an Arab was living in what was to become Israeli territory he had to be given the chance to become an Israeli citizen and nobody had the right to chase him out of his house by force. Very well. I agree. There seem to be a contradiction in what you say afterwards. on one hand you say that: on the other hand you say that: and by that implying that Israel DID have a right to "own" those lands, even if it didn't give the Arabs in those territories individual rights, simply because they gave more freedom than the Arab nations. Or, another possible conclusion from what you said is that nobody had a right to own those lands, because nobody was willing to acknowledge the rights of the individuals living there. In my last sentence I am using the word "own" in the manner that you defined it for a government ("the entity that claims the exclusive use of retaliatory force in a geographical area"). I think that Israel had the right to "own" those lands, because those lands were used to attack the citizens of Israel (over and over again during the years). There is a conflict here, however, between the rights of the innocent Palestinians living there and between the right of Israeli citizens to their life. Why not, do you ask, make the effort to protect the Palestinians living there with the Israeli law, and only prosecute the guilty (people who fought against Israel, and people who helped them do that in any way)? Well, on one hand I tend to agree with you, and think that we did a terrible mistake by not trying hard enough to do just that. On the other hand, the history of Israel was filled, as I said, with cases of raid on Jewish settlements. Those gave Israel a reason to believe that almost all the Arab population in the conquered territory would do the same if they had the opportunity. However, I think that if we applied your method of judging individuals (no matter how long it would take and how many resources we would have to invest in it) eventually the result would be justice (and also, in the life quality of Israelies, much better than today). Thanks for the great insight. I'll have to think about this more though.

Myron, the way you put things is not organized enough for me, and the logic behind it is not stated explicitly: instead you give quotes that represent your final conclusions and get angry if I don't agree immediately. My intention is to have an understanding of the proper application of Objectivist ethics as I know them so far with the Israeli-Arab conflict (the history of it). I have no interest in accepting your opinion, or anyone else's on faith. Other than that your style of discussion is intentionally insulting. Therefor I get little value from discussing with you and I am not going to answer your posts from now on. mrocktor, for some reason this subject is hard for me to analyze. Probably because it has many parameters that has to be taken into account. So I won't always reply immediately to your posts, sometimes I need to "sleep on something". Hope you stick around even if my responses would be slow. Now to your post: This subject is complex. First of all what you said implies that you think the disengagement was immoral (I agree). But consider the fact that in order to protect the people living in the settlements, the IDF had to jeopardise a lot of soldiers. The lives of those soldiers had to be considered as well. Just pulling back the soldiers and letting the people in the settlements decide if they want to stay would have had the same effect as ordering to evacuate those places. In other words, I think that the government should have a certain amount of control over the territory it decides to protect (or to "own"). In the case of the disengagement I agree that it was immoral. I'm not going to go into the reasons for it to stay focused on the discussion. My second point about your claim is that a government should be in charge of making sure that citizen's interests won't collide. For example, say that some people want to settle in Mars. The government should be involved in arranging the different areas for settlements. If two people want to use the same land, one for a hotel and one for a factory of some sort, the government should be involved in deciding who should get that territory, otherwise you'd have anarchy. What I'm saying is that I don't agree with your claim that government should not own territory. However, once a person bought a certain territory, and that ownership does not collide with the rights of other citizens, the sole meaning of "ownership" of a government over that land should be in the sense that you said: "the entity that claims the exclusive use of retaliatory force in a geographical area". I think that for this discussion, using the last definition that you provided should be good enough. Now to the real problem: Well according to your criterion, Israel had no right over the conquered territories, but the Arab countries did. Israel gave no citizenship to the Arabs living in the conquered territories, and limited their freedom of movement (and economic freedom) as response to actions taken by certain individuals (terrorists living among them). you already talked about this issue, that you think that the conflict is partially a result of Israel's failure to protect Palestinians individual rights. The problem with giving them freedom was that it would have meant great risk to the Jewish population. Arabs have been attacking Jewish settlements before the country was even declared. while it is true that we have no proof that ALL Arabs in the area were hostile to Jews, the rulers of the country had a reason to believe that removing military control from the conquered area would cause raids on Jewish settlements. Do you think we should have taken that chance and treat them as individuals anyway? (along with the tribunals you suggested). As for the raids of Arabs on Jewish settlements, no it wasn't justified. Britain sold lands that the Arabs were working on as hired workers, not as owners of that land. As for the right of return: Yes, there are proofs of former ownership of those lands. Some Arabs hold the keys to their old houses till this day. (if you want, I can search online for a list of the claims). That's what I have to say for now

Ahh, Gibbs' free energy . Wallah! so, Maarten, in essence you're saying that the water (or liquid) favors connections with molecules of it's own kind, and tries to "reject" the gas from interfering with those connections, and by that forces the gas into a shape that would minimise it's area, assuming that the volume has to stay constant (even if the gas had taken another form). What determines the volume of the gas? I think it has to be the fact that the pressure of the liquid and the gas has to be equal. Right? Nice. If I get any other questions I'll post them here.

I'm referring to bubbles of gas inside liquid. What is the reason that the gas arranges itself in that form?

I've never seen anyone who talks so much and answers the actual questions so little. I also sense that in every sentence you're trying to prove some sort of superiority. I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in a full understanding of this issue, which would be achieved by an organized discussion. The Rabi joke was not intended as some sort of personal insult. you seem to take things very personally. Now that we have that clear, I'm going to talk about your answers: Did you notice how you never answered my question? I was asking what should be the justification for conquering land from an enemy and keeping it. You replied that "The aggressor shows that it does not respect rights by it's actions" and "By taking over its territory, the free nation would be spreading the protection of rights.". That is not an answer, unless you take "spreading of rights" as the justification for conquering land. The interesting thing in your answer though, was the quote by Ayn Rand " “The only thing to be concerned with is: who started that war?". According to this quote, she claims that it doesn't matter which country is freer, but only "who started the war". I'll read that article later, it'll probably be very useful. Here are another 2 questions you didn't answer: I asked, what should the country that has conquered those lands do with them, and with the people in them, and not what the country that has lost should do. You only answered my question partially by saying that "Those who held vital roles in the Aggressor Nation, would have to serve long terms in hard labor prisons." and that "complicit population has to pay". What about the rest of the population? What methods should be used to determine who is innocent and who is complicit? Or are you saying that we should assume (and you are ASSUMING that, you don't know it for sure unless you checked) that all the citizens are complicit? And even if we do receive compensation from the complicit population, can you talk about the other aspects of their life? Should they receive protection by law? Should they be given economic freedom? I already asked you this, but got an answer that was not related to my question at all: I was not asking about wartime, I was asking about citizens living in those conquered areas, after the war ended. As for your opinion (which is irrelevant to THIS discussion) that there should be no attempt to discriminate civilians from the army of the enemy, I don't respect that opinion, and I saw no justification for it. It also seems from your quote above that you think that such a thing as "innocents in war" hardly exists. 1) How do you know that, unless you've done a survey? Seriously. 2) While this may have been the case in the examples you provided, it is not correct to assume this is the true in all cases.

So is "spreading the protection of rights" by itself a justified reason for conquering land? Because what I understood from your sentence is 1) let's determine which country is free and which isn't. 2) the free country has the right to take over lands of the non-free country because it is free. Did I understand you correctly? In the war of liberation, the Arab nations were attacking Israel out of a desire to take over the land entirely, and not allow any Jewish settlements to take place. Israel didn't have a fully functioning government and laws at that time, and there was no knowing what would become of it (a free or unfree country). Would you say that the Arab nation's attack was justified? why not? Moreover, the simple act of taking over the land does not by itself mean "spreading rights". It depends what the conquering country is doing with the land, and the people in it. Agree? So what do you think should be done with those lands and the people in it after they've been taken? I agree that the government and the complicit population forfeit the demand that their rights be respected by the attacking country. However, what method do you have of telling the complicit population from the innocent population in the conquered areas? Do you automatically assume they are all complicit, or do you assume they are innocent until proven guilty? As for the Talmud business... Should I set up a meeting with a Raby for you ? I'm not talking about that sort of victory (with the result of a government being dissolved), only of conquered territories. I was not asking about the moral thing, I was asking about the acceptable thing. It's important to know what the "world" is expecting, to analyse and predict it's actions.

So to sum it up, all of you are saying that if a country that has been attacked conquers land from it's enemies, it has the right to claim permanent ownership of that land. Can anyone give a detailed explanation to the justification of that? (I agree that this is just, but I want a full explanation why). Also, no one answered my first question though - which was: what is the acceptable thing to do in such a case ("world's opinion")? Because I've been told that the acceptable view is that that country should only hold those territories for military purposes, until it reaches a peace settlement of some sort (A view I do not agree with but I would like to know if it exists). mrocktor, You also said that country D should respect the right of property of the former citizens of that land, and to protect them by law (acknowledge their individual rights). Hmm. this means that every act of violence committed after the conquest should be judged in a civil courthouse, and not in the context of war (i.e, we can't take such a man as a war prisoner). How do you suppose we should have treated the Intifada activists? As for protecting the Palestinians by the Israeli law (when the country was just founded): The problem with that was that a lot of the Arab population was hostile to Jews (Not necessarily because of racism, but because Jews were Buying land from Britain, a land that the Arabs made a living of, and because of other reasons). As for the Arabs living in Israel before the country was announced - Was their battle for their land justified or not? Because, as I said, the UN simply divided the area, but they didn't give anyone any compensation for having to leave their land (Jews or Arabs). This conflict is very complex... I think that the main problem with Arabs is that, for some reason, they have a strong tendency to resort to violence when they don't like something. I agree that Israel should have tried to give them equal rights, to encourage their economic development (instead of not giving them permission to develop independent agriculture, not allowing them to build things, having very tight control over their economics, with the intention of forcing them to be a workforce inside Israel rather than becoming independent), but why do they resort to violence to show their discontent? I mean, there were other people who had to fight for equality (like black people in the USA) but they didn't do it violently. Jews were also suffering from discrimination in Europe, but they didn't start riots over it. It must be something in (some of) the Arab's philosophy then. I just don't know what it is or where it's coming from.

Bold Standard, I like the way you phrase your questions . The answer is that I was always repulsed by people's reactions for threats and unordinary things (complete terror, helplessness, a desire to avoid being in contact with everything that is not familiar). This painting was a rebellion against it. I took a place that people consider to be a source of safe amusement, and turned it into a place where people had to face things that were not a part of their everyday life. They had to decide whether or not to stay and view the show (and pretend it's a normal part of it), to try and run away in panic and trample all over each other, to resist... And on the other hand there is the monster's trainer which has conquered her fears, and she is friends with the monsters. She is not afraid of unordinary things, she is thrilled to deal with dangerous things and to conquer them. The painting sharpens the difference. If you see the details of the painting (I'm going to put a detailed photo of it, but it's going to be bulky in memory), each person in the crowd has their own facial expression. Some of them are brave, they don't try to close their eyes and pretend it isn't there. They examine the situation and think of ways to deal with it, they are ready to take action if necessary (and they don't run while screaming "out of my way"). I would probably not paint this sort of painting today, and the idea behind it does not appear in any other work of mine. As for the sexy women: It's important to say that I don't see a direct relation between nudity and sexuality. For me, when I paint a woman naked, it's not a symbol of her sexuality, but a way to show the essence of her character in the most direct way. Oh, and I like your questions, keep them coming .

I would love to hear your thoughts about my art. ifatart.com The paintings, sketches and drawings in my site are works that I've done over the last 6 years or so. My older paintings are more in the style of Fantasy art, or what I call Symbolic art, and my later paintings describe real life situations. A few of my works are directly related to Ayn Rand's novels. The quality of the technique also varies according to age of the painting (the later ones are better). Here is one of my best works: Hope you enjoy, and please tell me what you think.

Did you finish the painting yet? Can you show the stage it is now? I would love to see it in colors, and with the background. I love the way her dress emphasizes her body. I love the line of her neck, and the grace of her posture. I visualized her face differently though: I also have a drawing of Dagny Taggart. It's interesting to see how different people interpret the same character's physical appearance differently. I thought of her face as not being so perfect in their features (like the perfect beauty of your Dagny) but more of being beautiful for her character. Here is the link to the drawing: Drawing of Dagny Taggart

do you have more drawings or paintings to show? I'd be happy to see them.

ICQ: 269888706 (Nick Glassman) Google talk: ifat.glassman Favorite topics: My paintings, if you saw them, other painters' work, Objectivism, Brain research, Biology Feel free to write.

I'm going to revive a long dead subject by posting here, but this is important to me. I don't find the subject of Michael Jackson's mental destruction to be funny at all. He was called "The king of pop" for a reason, his music had fire and soul, he was an amazing dancer and a very talented song writer. Ever listened to his early songs? ("Thriller", "Do you remember the time", "The way you make me feel", "black and white", "give in to me" and more). I am a big fan and I think what happened to him is very sad. And I also don't understand who or what got to him to cause such tremendous damage, but it must be something powerful and scary.

My intent was to discuss the History of the Arab-Israeli conflict, from the time after the declaration of independence of Israel (There was hostility between Arabs and Jews even before the country was announces as independent by the UN in 1948, but I don't want to discuss that). I was referring to the War of Liberation, and what followed. The agreement with the Arab nations in the end of the war was that Israel would hold certain territories in a cease-fire agreement, under a military control. It meant that the Arab population in Gaza and in the west bank lived under military control for many years. Here are the borders that the UN decided on, in 1947: http://www.passia.org/Palestine_facts/MAPS...-plan-reso.html, and here are the borders after the many wars Israel has known over the years (primarily influenced by the war of liberation and the six days war): . Areas (1) Are conquered territories under Israeli law (include east Jerusalem) and areas (2) (The west Bank and Gaza strip) are under military control with limited authority for the Palestinian authority in some of the regions. In the end of the six days war Israel had to face the problem of what to do with the conquered territories: "At the end of the war Israel controlled a population of approximately 3 million Palestines... Israel decided not to append most of the occupied territory, which would have meaningfully lessened the percent of Jews in the country. On the other hand, Israel didn't want to back out of these territories, for strategic, political, and ideological considerations (protection and negotiation). Israel therefor established military control over these regions (in the "spirit" of the forth Janeva convention), and appended east Jerusalem by law (and gave citizenship to the Palestinians who lived there). Israel also started encouraging settlements in the occupied areas. The green line remained an administrative line for territories under Israeli law. The territories within the "Green line" remained under Israeli law, while the territories outside them remained under the law of the previous country that owned that territory prior to the war, but with Israeli military control. Now, mrocktor, I agree with what you said. Israel did not do your proposal number (3) which was: However, There was a justification for this. At the time that Israel was just declared, Most Arabs did not recognise Israel (to say the least) and there have been many cases of raids of local Arabs on the Jewish population, before the country was even declared. I guess the leaders of Israel at the time feared that this would happened with Arabs of other nations as well. (even though this consideration does not appear in the wikipedia quote above). As for respecting the right of property of individual Arabs, there was a problem with that as well (know as the "right of return"). What happened, in short was that many Arabs fled during the beginning of the war of liberation and the six days war, from fear of getting hit by the Arab armies when they strike. They were hoping to get their homes back after the war ends. Instead, Israel has won those wars, and did not allow the Arabs to return to their homes (under the claim that it is Israel's right to decide who has the right to emigrate into it). The Arabs that stayed in Israel during their war received citizenship (in some cases, depending where their houses were located). Myron, I agree with your (1) and (2) (for a change), but I don't agree that the reparating country has the right to treat it's citizens as "natural resources" and hand them over to the other country. Or maybe I did not understand what you meant. Anyway, I feel that this whole issue of the History of this conflict is something I haven't yet decided about (in terms of moral judgement of everything that happened), so this is why I am having this discussion now. This can either be a general discussion about relations between two countries (but I realise now that without the full context it might be impossible to discuss), or a particular discussion about Israel and the Arab countries in the region. Oh yes, and another problem about this conflict is the need to determine what gives a group of men ownership over a piece of land. Without this we cannot judge who was good and who was bad in the conflict. The situation in Israel before it became a country, was that Arabs abd Jews lived together under British law. When they left the UN plan for dividing the country was suppose to determine who gets what territory. The question is, was it immoral for the Arabs who's land was suppose to be given away under that plan, to rebel against it (after all, I don't think that Britain or the UN offered any sort of compensation for Arabs who's land was suppose to be given away)?

Suppose country A attacked country D, and country D has won the war and even succeeded conquering some of country A's territory. Is it acceptable in the world that D would keep that territory as it's own (destroy what they don't like in it, build houses for their citizens etc), as a territory under military occupation for protection (if so then for how long?), or as a political negotiation card (peace for land)? Or in other words what is acceptable in the world? Second question is, what RIGHTS do the conquering country (D) have over that territory? Third question is, what should be done with the population of country A that is living in the conquered territories? How do the answers to these questions change when the conquering country is the Aggressor (Assuming A won the war)?

I think that certain fears can take hold of a person even if they are very rational people. For example, brave soldiers who go through a near-death experience, and suffer from Trauma. The Trauma is basically, from neurological point of view, a neurological path that gets hard wired in the brain. I guess that during the frightening experience there is a lot of adrenaline and other chemicals in the brain that cause the strengthening of the specific path from the neurons that are responsible for identifying the certain sounds and sites connected with the incident and the region of the brain that is responsible for the sensation of fear to get much stronger. And that's why the next time those people hear something, even the slightest, that sounds like the thing that frightened them during that near-death experience they react automatically with anxiety, and they have little or no control over it. It is wrong to believe that human beings can control every aspect of their mental function by accepting a certain philosophy and using a certain method for gaining knowledge (reason). There are things that our brain does automatically, which we have no control of. (for example see pavlovian conditioning) I don't think that trauma is understood in the brain level today, and the treatment for chronic fears is psychological one (which eventually changes the wiring in the brain).

Israel's method of fighting, and the declared goals of this operation (or war) has changed dramatically since the beginning of this crisis. At the beginning it was "We will disarm Hesbollah completely, and once and for all", then it was "we will destroy most of hesbollah's ability to strike" (along with declarations such as "only 5 days of fighting and Israel has already destroyed 60% of Hesbollah's ability") and then it became "Ok, we just want to push Hesbollah back a few Kilometers from the border (And to get the kidnapped soldiers back)". The IDF's method of fighting changed: we no longer bomb every site we have intelligence of. Instead we send in small forces, with artillery and air-force backup to fight terrorists face to face in guerrilla combat. When we learn of a location of a terrorist "camp" we don't bomb the place (because it would involve killing Lebanese who stayed in the south despite Israel's warning to leave), but instead send our troops in to do a "surgical" cleanup that end up with many injured soldiers (and a few dead) on our side. An interesting article (which, for some reason, never got translated to English from Hebrew, so I can't supply a link) suggests that the reason for this type of combat that we're doing is to break Hesbollah's myth that they are "undefeatable in land combat" and by that (plus taking several hostages) demoralising them into negotiation under terms that are acceptable for Israel. Grrrr, why can't we just bomb the heck out of their "Bynth Gable" (I'm probably spelling the name of the town incorrectly) which is called the "capitol of Hesbollah". Is it the European pressure that brought this change in Israel's attitude? It's also known that Israel acquired smart bombs from the US (satellite guided) and Bunker-penetrating bombs, Yeah! Can't wait till we start using them. As for attacking Syria - yeah right! we're not even after full disarm of Hesbollah anymore. And we made it clear to Syria that we will not attack them. The bastards keep on trying to smuggle trucks full of ammunition to Hesbollah. I'm very disappointed with how Israel is caving in, and I don't understand why.

I was reading the thread about the kidnap of Gilad Shalit by the Hesbollah and everything that followed, and realised that I didn't give enough attention to the topic of this thread. The reason that Israel's actions in Lebanon and Gasa are referred to as "disproportional" might be because: 1) Hesbolla and Israel are thought of as moral equals, who simply have a disagreement about certain things. 2) Even is Hesbollah and Israel are not thought of as moral equals, then the view is that Israel should punish Hesbollah according to the severeness of it's immediate actions, in the same way that a thief should not be punished by execution... 3) In the past there has been many cases of Hesbolla or Hamas acting against Israel (sometimes with a greater number of deaths) with much lesser retaliation from Israel's side, and therefor people've gotten used to that, and are surprised by the actions Israel is taking now. The answer to #2 is that Hesbollah's actions should not be judged separately from the organization's goal. A system of punishments with differing degrees is only good when the working assumption is that the criminal can someday change back to good. In the case of Hesbollah the declared purpose of the organization is to destroy Israel and all the "Zionists" (a goal which has been demonstrated to us many times). And therefor it is Israel's interest to destroy Hesbollah, and not to punish it. Once that goal has been declared, there is no such thing as "disproportion" in our actions against Hesbollah. They are evil, they should be wiped out, period. The answer to #3 is that what's different from the past, is that Israel evacuated settlements (the "disengagement"), we retreated from Lebanon, we did everything expected from us to ensure peace. Because we did all that but the enemy still attacked us, accepting it and retaliating in the same way we did in the past would have said to the enemy that it is legitimate to attack us even when we are not on their ground, which would mean that it is ok to attack us even when we are making efforts to make peace. In the past the enemy fought the IDF on their territory, and they could plea self defense. But to give a legitimacy after our army withdraw, would be giving a legitimacy to the intention of Destroying Israel (and it's population). And therefor Israel is now doing what it's doing.

As for the example of the baby: I did not mean to start a debate about what should be the limit to justified (or legal) actions made in self defence. My question was more general than that: The fact is that we DO put a limit to what one can do in self defense (in the realm of individuals who are citizens of the same country). And that line is that hurting the innocent bystanders in that incident would be justified only if: 1) They got hit by mistake, while standing behind the gunman 2) The person defending himself was in a situation when he had no other choice but to choose between his life and the innocent's life. 3) I have to think about number three a bit more. However, all these cases indicate that killing innocents has to be a last resort (and not a first resort). My question was why should that limit NOT exist when we are talking about civilians of different country. The non-existence of such limit is obvious from the words of Leonard Peikoff: "...And it must be fought in a manner that secures victory as quickly as possible and with the fewest U.S. casualties, regardless of the countless innocents caught in the line of fire". This sentence puts NO limit on the damage for innocents of an enemy country. But in the individual realm there is a clear distinction. There is a logical gap between the two. Or maybe I am misinterpreting Peikoff's sentence. On one hand he says "caught in the line of fire" but on the other hand he says "as quickly as possible and with the fewest U.S. casualties...". Well what if the fewest US casualties would mean simply to nuke everyone? That would contradict the second half of the sentence "caught in the line of fire", which implies an action taken against the army of the enemy, with unfortunate, untargeted, civilian casualties. Oh and: Edited to say: Yey to that!

There are a few fundamental things that are not clear to me about this issue. Maybe someone here cares to clarify: 1) Assuming that human beings are living in a world with enough resources to sustain everyone (i.e, not a life-boat situation) individual rights are the proper application of morality for people living in a society. These rights (morally) apply to all men, regardless of race or country. 2) Normally, a country should (morally) punish a citizen (of that country) that violates individual rights of a citizen of another country. 3) The actions of one person do not have the power to make another person morally responsible for these actions, if the later did not willingly support the first's actions. 4) A country is composed of individuals, and is not one body with one opinion. Do we agree so far? If we do, then it is clear that violating rights of citizens of another country has to be justified. It CANNOT be an issue outside of morality, because the very suggestion of initiating force against people who did not initiate the use of force against you collides with the basic moral principles of Objectivism (and in this case, these are also the moral principles of the rest of the world, or most of it) Note that in my last sentence I was talking about citizens, individuals, who did not initiate the use of force against anyone outside their country. "Initiating the use of force" includes willingly contributing money to the attacking forces or their ruler, supporting the attacker by vote, or propaganda of any kind. Again, the most important thing to emphasize is the fact that the support has to be willful. An action that prolongs the attacking, evil regime that was imposed on that citizen (like paying taxes, or being put in a slave camp to produce weapons), cannot be considered as initiation of force. Do we agree on that? Now, I'm confused about the quotes that were given here from Yaron Brook's article. On one hand, he says that attacking complicit civilians is justified (with which I agree). On the other hand, he says that the quickest safest method of eliminating the threat should always be chosen, regardless of the innocents on the other side. The last statement shows a clear distinction between complicit citizens, and innocent citizens. Which also shows that the article basically agrees with statements 1-4 above. Which means, that a citizen of an evil country cannot be considered morally responsible for the actions of his government, simply because he's a citizen of that country. Otherwise, a concept such as an "innocent civilian of an enemy country" could not have existed in that sentence. Which brings me to the following problems: 5) When one is attacked, what are the moral actions, that should (morally) be permitted by law, as a defense? Obviously, not every method of defense would be justified. And yes, it IS obvious. For example, if someone threatens to come to my house and kill me, and I plant explosives in the sidewalk surrounding my house (which is not my property), then I am clearly not acting morally. If someone tries to shoot at me in the street, and I start shooting other people indiscriminately, (which is safer for me, because he can't hide) I will not be acting morally. If I aim at the attacker and accidentally hit someone behind him, I did act morally. In the realm of individuals who are citizens of the same country it is clear that we do put a limit to the actions one can take in self defense. So then, why is the case of individuals of different countries different? Why should we not put a limit to the things that a country can do (legally, which is the result of our morality) in self defense? There is also another problem: 6) How can we know which citizens of an enemy country are complicit, and which are not? There are cases that we can clearly know. For example, everyone wearing uniform of the enemy army. Everyone marching in the street and demonstrating support of the regime or terror group. But in most cases we have no means of knowing. We can know what the majority supports, sometimes, but we still don't know about the individuals' stand. I ask you not to give quotes as a final justification, but reasonable arguments, drawn by you or anyone else.

LOL! no I'm not. The clothes I presented have a certain design that I like. It's the leather and many metal buttons that I don't like... And leather clothes seem uncomfortable as well. I was only referring to the shape of the shirts in those pictures: it emphasizes the width of the chest, it allows freedom of movement of the arms, it has a V shape that emphasizes the hight of the man. The first link I gave (the one that doesn't work) is much more elegant and comfortable (except for the puffy sleeves... ).