IDF Raids Free Gaza Movement Aid Flotilla

[2046]

Okay. Agreed, but by your own logic, this applies to Israel as well. Israel has basically setup an apartheid system of governance where it practices a virulent form of institutional discrimination against its own citizens. Does this count too?

No, it hasn't. But in any case, since this “apartheid” accusation seems to be fashionable with you: America has no obligation to protect the rights of people in Israel. Of course, we are well-wishers to the freedom of all, but it is not the proper function of US foreign policy to protect the rights of Israelis or Palestinians, only people within the borders of America. Israel, on the other hand, isn't hijacking US airplanes, bombing American school buses, or threatening to cover the whole world in theocratic dictatorship. Israel's enemies, however, are, and that's what counts to us.

You are correct that I am wrong but neither are you correct as to the premise of Objectivist politics. The premise of Objectivist politics is actually the right to life.

He said the premise is individual rights, then you say “no you're wrong, it's the right to life.” Do you not see anything wrong with that rebuttal?

I could make the case that a state that treats a segment of its population as second class citizens while favoring others is not really a democracy as in a democracy, ALL have an equal share in government- but I won't.

The idea that democracy is some kind of virtue, that “THE DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT OF HAMAS” who has “DAMN NEAR THE WHOLE WORLD ON THEIR SIDE” has the standard of numbers to back up their supposed legitimacy is misguided. Put bluntly, we don't give a damn about democracy. Numbers are not the standard of value. If anything, the fact that a majority of Gazans would vote for Hamas is an indictment against them, for any legitimate “agent” or “representative” only has the same rights as anyone else, and those whom they act on the behest of take responsibility for their actions. As far as we are concerned, Hamas is a bandit gang of cannibals that ought to be kill-on-sight. Whatever borders they are willing to accept would be tantamount to that burglar agreeing to let you keep your bedroom as long as you let him have your kitchen.

As to our regional interests and how to further/protect them....well this is entirely a subjective evaluation and and it's pointless to go into the many reasons why support for Israel worls against our interests.

We disagree that moral value judgments are subjective, or that all cultures and countries are thereby equal. These in application to the case of Israel as a civilized nation compared to those Arab states which surround it and as to the harmony of interests between the US and Israel as against the antagonism of the Arabs and Muslims have been covered already and better in the other thread so I won't rehash them.

...if you steal somebody's land illegally ...what is rightfully theirs ... UN resolution 242 ...all land stolen is rightfull, legally Palestinian Occupied Territory(OPT)...

Occupation is aggression. Theft of land is aggression. Colonialism(settlers) is aggression so what you call a "campaign of terror" makes no sense.

If you invade and OCCUPY my home and me and my family retreat to the bedroom and use whatever means at your disposal to resist, can I really be said to be fighting dirty if I used unsavory methods? If you don't like my methods then get the hell out of my home and leave us alone!

We disagree that this is “occupation of X land.” Your analogy fails because my house is private property, not “the land belonging to the whatever race/nation.” Rights are not collective and not based on race or religion. There is no “Arab land” or “Palestinian land.” As to who owns particular pieces of property, the Israelis earned the ownership of the land by developing it. Homesteading does not work along absurd ethnic or national or “historical” rights to lands. Our view is thus that the land was legitimately homesteaded by European immigrants and settlers. To the extent that any Palestinians were wronged, then morally they should get their property back, and can and have successfully tried their cases in Israeli courts. If there are any laws frustrating those cases, then that's wrong, but not a legitimate case for Islamists' mass-murder of innocents. But those clamoring for “Arab land” or “Jews stealing land from rightful Palestinian owners” or “the Officially-decreed Muslim City of Jerusalem, a Muslim Holy Place” any other collective slogan have no right to claim your home is the entire area because of your ancient ancestors and your primitive tribe says so, then proceed to shoot Katyusha rockets into bedrooms all across cities built by civilized people.

As far as invasions and occupations go then, Israel as the right to invade and occupy the West Bank and Gaza, and whoever else attacks them, or wherever these people are hiding out and dreaming about how to eradicate Western civilization, and we suggest that they do. With extreme prejudice. In fact, we suggest Israel stop negotiating period and wasting time with blockades and just exterminate the Islamist guerrillas already. As far as the Palestinians go then, they have no right to a state, not the one they want anyway.

Suggestion to mods that perhaps this be merged with the other thread on “Who should we support Israel or Palestine?”

Edited October 3, 2010 by 2046

[AlexL]

... As to who owns particular pieces of property, the Israelis earned the ownership of the land by developing it. ... Our view is thus that the land was legitimately homesteaded by European immigrants and settlers.

Not primarily. As I already noted in an older post, if the Jews wanted to settle in Palestine, they had to buy the land which was already owned, from the respective owners.

Which they did, especially massively after about 1870. It wasn't possible otherwise, because the Ottoman, respectively the British Empire did have and did enforce the concept of ownership, and prevented theft of private property.

For example: in Paul Johnson's "A History of the Jews" I found many oblique references of land being purchased from, primarily Turkish, but also Jordanian and local Arab owners, the Rothschilds being big contributors. A direct acknowledgment of the fact of land buying by Jews in Palestine is this(p. 435, HarperPerennial, soft cover, ISBN 0-06-091533-1):

The scale of the settlements pushed up the price of land, and Jewish settlers and agencies found the Arabs hard bargainers: "every dunam of land needed for our colonization work

had

to be bought in the open market", complained Weizmann, "at fantastic prices which rose ever higher as our work developed. Every improvement we made raised the value of the remaining land in that particular area, and the Arab landowners lost no time in cashing in. We found we had to

cover the soil of Palestine with Jewish gold".

Specifically, Chaim Weizmann created, in 1908, a "Palestine Land Development Company", which "purchased about 50,000 dunams (about 4600 hectares) of land" (see here) before WWI. Between WWI and WWII and until the early 1950s various Jewish organization successfully continued this activity through thousands of agents traveling to Europe (Western and Eastern) and to Americas, contacting Jewish communities and collecting big amounts of money to buy land in Palestine. The donors were given Certificates with the exact designation of the corresponding plots of land which were on sale. The survivors of WWII which settled in Israel and which where still in possession of such certificates, could reclaim the corresponding plots.

Alex

[whYNOT]

Not primarily. As I already noted in an older post, if the Jews wanted to settle in Palestine, they had to buy the land which was already owned, from the respective owners.

Alex

Alex, valuable information you provided, that is not generally known, or deliberately overlooked.

The early Zionists were as much driven by a prescient sense that Jews were not always going to be welcome as 'guests' in their European and Arab countries.

(It was an unpopular opinion for the majority of Jews, who were quite happy living as assimilated French, Poles, Germans...)

Still, some purchased tracts of land from absentee Turkish landlords, which they developed, and lived on.

Anyway, when the Ottoman empire fell - the Turks had sided with Germany in WW1 - the British took over Transjordan as 'caretakers'. Balfour agreed in principle that Jews would be allowed a piece of TJ.

Matters came to a head with the out-pouring of Jewish camp survivors after WW2, grimly determined to never rely on any nation but their own. The Brits tried to staunch the inrush, and as a result were attacked guerilla- style by Jewish gangs. Not a very noble period for the Jews, but the context was their desperation.

(BTW, as an aside, my father was one of the Brit soldiers; my mother one of the Jews.)

In 1948, the UN voted for a Jewish State, within stipulated borders; on the same day, the British pulled out, and the surrounding Palestinian Arabs attacked. - boasting as ever that the Jews would be slaughtered.

With every war after that, self-defensive each time, the Arab attackers were repulsed. Israel gained full and effective control over the entire region, from Lebanon, south to the Red Sea, from Jordan to the Med.

And every time they pulled back to their own (admittedly slightly enlarged) borders.

(There was the opportunity to build an "empire", and send the Palestinian population to Egypt, Jordan or Lebanon - but they refused it.)

This is a very basic history, and the facts can be checked, in order that we can all be on the same page as to Israel's right to exist.

The key words in that right are Bought, Court,(ie, by UN resolution), and Fought.

What further does any nation need to do?

[AlexL]

The Brits ... were attacked guerilla- style by Jewish gangs. Not a very noble period for the Jews, but the context was their desperation. (BTW, as an aside, my father was one of the Brit soldiers; my mother one of the Jews.)

Very telling was the reaction of the local mainstream Jewish parties and authorities: they vigorously denounced the terrorist attacks and handed over to the British a number of Jewish terrorists:

Haganah, appalled and infuriated, launched what was called the Saison against both Sternists and Irgun. It captured some of them and held them in underground prisons. Worse, it handed over to the British CID the names of 700 persons and institutions. At least 300 and possibly as many as 1,000 were arrested as a result of information supplied by the Zionist establishment.

Johnson, p. 522

.

... Israel's right to exist.

The key words in that right are Bought, Court,(ie, by UN resolution), and Fought.

What further does any nation need to do?

I do not believe that the legitimacy of Israel - or of any state - comes from a UN resolution. The legitimacy comes from the fact of respecting the individual rights of its citizens. Presently, there is no country in the world which fully respects these right. However, Israel is among the 20-30 front-runners; all the other countries in the region are far, far behind.

Israel's is a very complex society, with very diverse culture and mentalities, some quite disgusting. The proportional (vs. majoritary) voting system doesn't help in the matter. However, it's a dynamical and vibrant society, and there exists a strong and influential rational core.

Alex

[probeson]

It has been suggested that the topic has deviated from its main point and is actualy more relevant in this thread:

http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=19777&st=20&gopid=262775&#entry262775

I welcome any comments and I assure you that I will offer a reasonable and logical argument to support my ideas.

[AlexL]

It has been suggested that the topic ... is actualy more relevant in this thread:...

In my view, the legitimacy of using force against the Flotilla is largely independent from the legitimacy of the state of Israel and even of the legitimacy of the Gaza blockade, so that, in case I will have the time to discuss this subject, I will do it in the current thread.

Meanwhile you may comment in the other thread on my off-topic remarks.

Alex

[AlexL]

Was it an initiation of force-Yes or No?

...

You will certainly agree that such a question is unanswerable without some context. Indeed, imagine that a Martian landed near Omaha Beach, in Normandy, France on June 6, 1944 at about 06:00. A beautiful beach, all is very quiet, peaceful people are starting to wake up ...

And suddenly, after 30 minutes, there is an enormous armada of 200'000 men in 5'000 ships, heavily armed, supported by artillery fire and airplanes bombing like crazy.

The first thought of the shocked Martian was: I've never seen such a treacherous and perfidious aggression against a peaceful population !!!

But this particular Martian was a clever and experienced man (being?) and thought that possibly there is more to this event than meets the eye...

Therefore, returning to our incident, let's see if we can agree on the context, that is on some basic facts and principles.

A country A declares a sea blockade off the coasts of a country B. The blockade is implemented by the armed forces of A. The terms of the blockade permit the entry of only some products into B, so that all ships are supposed to first go to a port in A in order for the cargo to be unloaded and checked, and the permitted items to be transported to B.

Now, a ships is sailing towards B with the declared intention to break the blockade, that is to unload the supplies unchecked, directly in B. The ship approaches the blockade line and is warned about this fact and requested to change course toward the port in A. The ship refuses. The armed coast guards try to board the ship from speedboats in order to change the ship's course. The guards are forcibly and violently prevented to do this. Then they try to abseil into the ship from a first, then a second helicopter. They are again violently prevented to do this. In the end the coast guards take the ship by using their weapons. There are casualties, dead and wounded, on both sides.

Imagine -again - that you are driving your car and a police patrol summons you to stop and be searched. You know you are guilty of no crime, so what will you do? Will you resist? No, because you know the the policeman is authorized to use the force necessary to make you obey. You will abstain from resisting, and in any case hurting him, although in your view he is the one who aggressed by stopping you, you being innocent...

IOW, in such a situation the only thing for you to do is to obey, and argue against what you believe was an illegal arrest only afterward, in a non-violent way, and when your life will not be in danger any more. You know that if you agress him, he might come to use his weapon. And you also know that if you obey, you will be safe, physically.

Therefore, even if the coast guard is the one doing something illegal, you have to obey. Or to suffer the consequences. You may resist only if you know that your life is in danger.

You may notice that I skipped over many circumstances which were aggravating for the ship crew, one being that their violent resistance was obviously prepared, i.e. premeditated, i.e. a provocation.

So, the answer to your question "Was it an initiation of force-Yes or No?" is YES ... it was initiation of force on the part of some of the people on the ship.

Is the initiator of force a criminal -Yes or No?

YES, those people from the ship acted criminally.

Do you mean to say that because a state does not agree to not initiate force that when it does, it's actions are not immoral and criminal? Yes or NO?

Regardless of the legality or illegality of the blockade, those people were wrong to resist violently, even more so as their lives wouldn't habe been in danger.

Did the members of the crew that were attacked by this criminal state have a right to defend themselves by any means necessary -Yes or No?

NO -- explained above.

Is occupation an act of aggression and it is the victim that should be helped -Yes or No?

Is off-topic here. There is now another thread for this.

Alex

Edited October 4, 2010 by AlexL