War Handwavium

After three weeks waging its war against the people of Gaza, Israel’s guns have finally fallen silent. Israel refuses to sign any formal ceasefire so no long-term solutions have been implemented. Although Israel has stopped killing Gazans with its tanks, artillery, and missiles, Israel’s two year blockade remains and so Israel continues to kill Gazans through the slow death of starvation, polluted water, and lack of medicine.

Probably the most dangerous fact?, Israel’s military is now occupying Gaza with no treaty to hold it to a specific withdrawal date. This open-ended military occupation can only lead to an eventual attack by some Palestinian militant, which Israel will then use to justify a resumption of its war against all of Gaza. Israel’s sole goal of its current ceasefire appears to be nothing more than an attempt to reduce international attention on its war with Gaza in hopes that it can resume its war later.

This “unilateral ceasefire” isn’t a truce or a move towards peace on Israel’s part. This is a propaganda distraction scheme meant to distract international attention so that Israel can rearm and continue its war on Gaza at a later date.

Gaza is now haunted by the ghosts of 300 children killed by Israeli bombs. Gaza is now haunted by the ghosts of 300 adult civilians, men, women, fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, killed by Israeli shells.

And why did Israel create these ghosts? It claims that its war with Gaza was needed to stop Hamas rockets. But this is nothing but an Israeli ghost story.

For the year of 2008, Hamas rockets killed 17 Israelis. Israel would reasonably be expected to do something to stop the rockets. In fact they did. In July 2008, Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire. And the rockets stopped. For four months, the rockets stopped. Hamas approached Israel and offered to extend the ceasefire by a year if Israel would lift the two year long blockade of Gaza. Since Israel imposed the blockade in an attempt to stop Hamas from getting rocket parts, there should be little need for continuing the blockade.

And yet, when offered a chance to continue a working ceasefire that had stopped the rockets for four months, Israel declined to extend the ceasefire. Instead Israel violated the existing ceasefire on November 4, sending troops into Gaza and killing 6 members of Hamas. On November 5, Israel tightened its blockade of Gaza. Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel.

And then on December 27, Israel began its full scale war against Gaza, claiming it needed to attack Gaza to stop the rockets.  The rockets that had stopped during the ceasefire from July to November. The ceasefire that Hamas had offered to extend if Israel would lift its blockade. The blockade Israel says is needed to prevent Hamas from launching rockets.

The truth is that the Israeli government isn’t nearly so much interested in stopping the rockets as it is interested in looking tough to its voting public. Israeli elections are coming up in February. And if Israel gives a single concession to Hamas, it might make make Israeli politicians look weak. And it might make Hamas look strong, which Israel refuses to allow to happen.

So Israel refuses to make any concessions, because it will make them look weak and make Hamas look strong. So in order to avoid any concessions, Israel has entered into a ceasefire of its own, without committing to any specific ceasefire. Hundreds of innocent civilians were killed so that Israeli politicians could look tough. Israel wasn’t trying stop the rockets. The rockets had already stopped. To put it in bluntly honest terms: Israel was trying to wipe out Hamas and it didn’t care how many civilians got killed in the process.

If there is going to be a lasting ceasefire, more importantly, if there is going to be any hope of getting the region on some sort of path to real peace, then Israel must withdraw its military from Gaza and Israel must lift its blockade of Gaza. If Israel is really just concerned with self defense and stopping the rockets, then Israel must accept that the July ceasefire had been working and should be extended in return for a lifting of the blockade.

There have been enough ghosts and ghost stories in Gaza in the last three weeks to last awhile.

Enough.

Israel’s apologist will often quote Hamas’s mission statement, which calls for the destruction of Israel, in an effort to demonize Hamas. You won’t find me defending Hamas or their mission statement, but if words condemn, then they condemn regardless of who said them.

In that regard, Israel has also called for not only the destruction of Hamas, but the desctruction of all of Gaza. Here are a few quotes from Israeli officials:

In summer of 2007, Israeli Deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai began preparing a plan on behalf of his boss, the Defence Minister Ehud Barak, to declare all of Gaza a “hostile entity” and dramatically reduce the essential services supplied by Israel — as long-time occupier — to its inhabitants, including electricity and fuel. The cuts were finally implemented late last year after the Israeli courts gave their blessing.

October 2007, Vilnai said of Gaza: “Because this (Gaza) is an entity that is hostile to us, there is no reason for us to supply them with electricity beyond the minimum required to prevent a crisis.”

January of 2008, Vilnai said that Israel should cut off “all responsibility” for Gaza, though, in line with the advice of Israel’s attorney general, he has been careful not to suggest that this would punish ordinary Gazans excessively.

Around this time, Vilnai also said “We want to stop supplying electricity to (Gaza), stop supplying them with water and medicine”

July 2008, Vilnai said that Gaza “will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves”. The media translated “shoah” to mean Holocaust. Israeli apologists played it down, saying that “shoah” should be translated to mean “disaster”. However, no one in Israel was fooled. “Shoah” — which literally means “burnt offering” — was long ago reserved for the Holocaust.

August 2008, Barak revealed that his officials were working on a way to make it lawful for the army to direct artillery fire and air strikes at civilian neighbourhoods of Gaza in response to rocket fire. They are already doing this covertly, of course, but now they want their hands freed by making it official policy, sanctioned by the international community.

At the same time Vilnai proposed a related idea, of declaring areas of Gaza “combat zones” in which the army would have free rein and from which residents would have little choice but to flee. In practice, this would allow Israel to expel civilians from wide areas of the Strip, herding them into ever smaller spaces, as has been happening in the West Bank for some time.

Vilnai and Barak’s ultimate goal appears to be related to Vilnai’s “shoah” comment: Gaza’s depopulation, with the Strip squeezed on three sides until the pressure forces Palestinians to break out again into Egypt. This time, it may be assumed, there will be no chance of return. And then Israel can take over the land.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9387.shtml

“Palestinians are like cancer. There are all sorts of solutions to cancerous manifestations. For the time being, I am applying chemotherapy.”
Moshe Y’alon, Israeli Chief-of-Staff

“Eventually we will have to thin out the number of Palestinians living in the territories.”
Eitan Ben Eliahu, Israeli Air Force Commander

“I believe in liquidationists.” (Assassination brigades targeting Palestinian activists)
General Meir Dagan, Head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service

http://www.newint.org/issue359/essay.htm/

Israel’s Minister of Public Security, Avi Dichter, believes punishment should be inflicted “irrespective of the cost to the Palestinians”;

Meir Sheetrit has urged that Israel should “decide on a neighborhood in Gaza and level it”

Deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai talks about bring about a palestinian holocaust in Gaza.

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=13780

“it would be pointless for Israel to topple Hamas because the population [of Gaza] is Hamas.”

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1226404716066&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

Major-General Gadi Eisenkot in the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth in October 2008:

“We will wield disproportionate power against every village from which shots are fired on Israel, and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective these [the villages] are military bases … This isn’t a suggestion. This is a plan that has already been authorised.”

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/war_on_gaza/2009/01/2009110112723260741.html

So, if Hamas’s words condemn Hamas, then Israel’s words likewise condemn Israel. Israel is calling for all of Gaza to be declared a “hostile entity”, indistinguishable from Hamas, that all civilians are Hamas. And this is in direct violation of international law for how to conduct a war among a civilians population.

Israel has also called all Palestinians a “cancer” and military power is a “cure”, they’ve threatened to bring a holocaust upon all of Gaza, they have threatened to pick a neighborhood in Gaza and level it, that they should inflict damage irrespective of the civilian casualties, and have come out and confessed to bringing a disproportionate response, again all of which, are violations of the rules of war.

So, if Israel wants to condemn Hamas based on Hamas’s words, then Israel can equally be condemned for its words. If Israel wants to excuse its words and say it shouldn’t be condemned for what it said, then Hamas should equally be excused for its words and not be condemned solely on what it said.

As far as I can tell, morality is measured first in action, then in words. Actions speak louder than words is the saying. If someone says “I love you” as they try to strangle you, then you ignore the words and judge based on the strangualtion attempt.

If you want to judge someone based on their words, that’s fine too. However, there is no morality in hypocracy. So, if you judge someones words, you need to judge everyone’s words, and you need to judge equally, independent of who said something.

So, if the Israeli apologists want to quote Hamas’s mission statement, that’s fine. I’ll condemn Hamas for their mission statement. But then I must condemn Israel for what it says as well.

The problem is that Israeli apologists want it both ways. They want to condemn Hamas based on what Hamas says, but they want to justify some reason for ignoring everything that Israel says. And when you get down to it, that’s just basic human hypocracy. In a time of war, we call it propaganda.

The Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, and?

In 1953, British and American intelligence overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in Operation Ajax and installed the Shah as dictator and puppet of the West. The British and US were indifferent to the damage the coup and the Shah would inflict on Iranians, and were only concerned with how the coup would benefit them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d’%C3%A9tat

The Shah was a brutal dictator ruling Iran for 25 years with an iron fist. His secret police, the SAVAK, was associated with the CIA and together they tortured and executed political opponents and anyone a threat to the Shah’s power. Viewing Iran as a stop against the spread of Soviet influence, Nixon gave the Shah carte blanche to buy all the American weapons he wanted. US aid to Iran continued until 1967.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,912545-6,00.html

The general attitude in Washington was that, although the Shah could be a most stubborn and inconvenient ally (former Secretary of the Treasury William Simon once called him “a nut”), he was on the whole considered a force for stability and moderation in the Middle East.

This assessment revealed itself to be utter bullocks in 1979.

By 1976, Amnesty International estimated that the Shah held between 25,000 and 100,000 political prisoners. During protests in 1978 and 1979, the Shah’s military opened fire on civilan demonstrators, killing five to ten thousand. By 1978, the Iranian people were holding massive demonstrations against the Shah. The Shah fled Iran in January 1979. The Ayatollah Khomeini and his followers swept through the country, taking power in February 1979.

By October 1979, the Shah entered the United States. Iranians had demanded the Shah return for trial and execution, and were so outraged by the US defending the tyrant it had put in power back in 1953, that Iranians invaded the US embassy in Iran and took 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

Iran turned into a fundamentalist muslim theocracy, and America’s overthrow of it’s democratic government in 1953, and its continued support of a brutal tyrant for 25 years, was what radicalized the country to fundamentalism, extremism, and with a severe hatred toward the US.

Fearful of the new radical extremist Iranian government it helped create, The US looked for a new stabilizing force it could support.

In 1979, Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq by killing and arresting his rivals. Saddam viewed the Islamic Revolution by the Ayatollah in Iran as a threat to his power. Iraq had large Shiite population, and Saddam’s power was vested mainly in the Sunni population of Iraq. Saddam’s government had a mostly non-religious ideology, and Saddam viewed as a threat to his own power the possibility that Iraqi Shiites might become sympathetic to the Shiite Muslim theocracy in Iran. In 1980, Saddam declared war on Iran.

In 1983, US special national intelligence estimate explores both the domestic and foreign implications of Iran’s apparent victory over Iraq. It states “Iraq has essentially lost the war with Iran” (p.6) It spends a page and a half discussing how Iraq losing the war could affect oil prices (at the time, around $34 a barrel)

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB167/03.pdf

During the mid 1980′s, the US pumped massive military support into Iraq, including chemical agents, biological agents, anthrax, weapons grade botulin poison, west nile virus, cyanide, mustard gas, and other Weapons of Mass Destruction. The US publicly condemned Iraq’s use of WMD’s while it continued giving Iraq full military support. Throughout the mid 80′s, Iraq used WMD’s against Iran on a regular basis, and occasionally against its own civilian population, and throughout the 80′s, the US supported Iraq.

In 1984, Iran presents a resolution to the UN condemning Iraq’s use of chemical weapons. The US embassador to the UN called for “restraint”. The resolution is rewritten removing all mention of Iraq from the resolution before the US allows it to pass.

By 1986, Kuwait asked the US to protect its oil tankers. The US reflaged the tankers under US flags, which then allowed the US military to attack Iranian ships that threaten the tankers. The tanker wars continued for years, culminating in 1988 when the US Vincennes shoots down Iran Air Flight 655, killing all 290 civilian passengers aboard.

By 1988, Iran and Iraq declare a ceasefire. Iraq’s economy is in a shambles and Kuwait is overproducing oil, dropping the price of oil, and impacting Iraq’s ability to pay off its debts. In 1990, Iraq invades Kuwait.

It would take a massive military coalition to force Iraq out of Kuwait, and it would take ten years to disarm Saddam Hussein. By 2000, the chief US weapons inspector, Scott Ritter stated that Iraq was 98% disarmed, but the US wanted a reason to topple Iraq and install its own government, so it wouldn’t allow Saddam to certify Iraq as fully disarmed.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051114/ritter/2

By February, 2003, the chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix, stated that Iraq was complying with inspections and that inspections would be complete within several months. The United States invaded within a month, citing false intelligence, and phony, nonexistent, links between Iraq and the attacks on 9/11. Years later, the US is still bogged down in that military quagmire.

In 1953, the US threw its military and financial support behind the Shah of Iran, thinking this would counter potential Soviet influence in the area, and stopping Iran from taking its oil fields away from British Petroleum. The total brutality of the Shah radicalized Iranians against him and against the US, and was a direct cause of the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

In 1983, the US threw its military and financial support behind Saddam Hussein, thinking this would counter the radical fundamentalist theocracy that had taken power in Iran in 1980. Once again, the assessment of experts in Washington revealed itself to be utter bullocks only a few years later.

The “experts” have repeatedly thrown military might and economic support behind military brutes in the middle east, arguing that having a strong ally in the middle east will create a stabilizing force in the region. And repeatedly, these “experts” have been shown to be full of shit. And the backlash it has created in the region always comes back to harming US civilians.

But, surely, we wouldn’t let these morons repeat this idiocy again, would we?

Don’t count on it.

We’re doing it right now with our blind, unquestioning support of Israel. Israel is America’s next Shah of Iran. Israel is America’s next Saddam Hussein. And like our blind support of the Shah caused the backlash of the Iranian Revolution, like our blind support of Saddam Hussein armed a madman with weapons of mass destruction, our blind support of a militant and beligerent Israel helped bring the attacks of 9/11 upon the US.

The US politicians and “experts” would say that our support of Israel brings stability to the middle east, but this opinion has already been shown to be utter bullocks.

Currently Israel receives the largest sum of American foreign aid, about three billion dollars every year. Every gun, every fighter plane, every helicopter, every tank used by the Israeli army is an American made weapon. M-16′s, F-16′s, Apache’s, and M-1′s.

http://www.fpif.org/papers/usisrael.html

While the US pumps billions of dollars into supporting Israel, the US ambassador to the United Nations has always made sure that no UN resolution will ever pass that criticizes Israel too strongly.

And while the US only strengthens its unquestion support of Israel, Israel’s actions in the Middle East are more and more coming under international condemnation.

Back in August of 2006, the UN condemned Israel’s use of thousands of cluster bombs against its war with Lebanon, leaving millions of unexploded munitions on the ground that would take months or years to clear.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/31/lebanon.clusterbombs/index.html

In May of 2008, Former US president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jimmy Carter condemned Israels blockade of Gaza as a “human rights crime”.

http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2008/05/26/gaza-blockade-is-human-rights-crime-carter/

October of 2008, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead McGuire arrived in a boat off the coast of Gaza to protest Israel’s continuing blockade of Gaza.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=6134239

In January of 2009, the Red Cross stated that Israel broke international law.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/08-6

January of 2009, the UN human rights chief warned a special session of the Human Rights Council on Friday that violations in the Gaza Strip were severe and that some reported incidents may warrant prosecutions for war crimes.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090109/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictgazaunrightschief_newsmlmmd

Also in January of 2009, Amnesty International joins the chorus calling for investigations into war crimes violations by Israel’s military in Gaza.

http://blog.amnestyusa.org/middle-east/un-should-investigate-war-crimes/

Of course, this blind and unquestioning support of Israel while the international community condemns Israel’s actions surely won’t have any negative consequences to America.

Will it?

On 18 April 1996, Israel bombarded a UN compound in Lebanon where civilians had fled for shelter from Israels invasion of Lebanon. Israel’s bombardment of the compound killed 106 civilians and wounded 116. The event became known as the Qana Massacre. A United Nations investigation into the incident found that the shelling was likely deliberate. Amnesty International investigated and concluded that the Israeli attack on civilians had been intentional. Human Rights Watch investigated and concluded that Israel violated international law. When the UN tried to pass a resolution requiring that Israel pay for the reconstruction of the UN facility, only two countries voted against the resolution, Israel, and the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_shelling_of_Qana

An architectural graduate student studying in Saudi Arabia saw video of the carnage and signed a “martyrdom will” the very same day of the massacre. His name was Muhammad Atta, and five years later, he would be piloting one of the planes into the World Trade Center on 9/11. The backlash to America’s blind support of Israel has already started.

Some would argue that the US government’s blind and unquestioning devotion to Israel comes from the Israeli lobby, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC. Former President Jimmy Carter stated that AIPAC is putting enormous pressure on politicians running for office who do not share AIPAC’s goals. However, that can’t entirely explain why when the international community is roundly condemning and criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza in december 2008 and January 2009, the US Senate passes a resolution “recognizing the right of Israel to ‘defend’ itself”. It was passed by unanimous voice vote, a true sign of cowardice.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=sr111-10

AIPAC probably has as much money and lobbying influence as the NRA, which is a lot, but even in teh face of NRA lobbyists, Congress manages to pass a gun control law or two. On the other hand, Congress is unanimous in its support of Israel. So there’s more to it than lobbyist money.

It would seem that the very same “experts” who advised the US to overthrow the democratic government of Iran and install the Shah as brutal dictator, who advised us to arm Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction in the 1980′s, who argued these actions would create a stabilizing force in the middle east, who have been time and again been shown to be completely full of shit, these very same moronic “experts” are still considered “experts” by the US government. And these idiots have convinced the US government that blind support of Israel will stabilize the region, will grant us power and influence in the region.

And when Israel commits attrocities like the Qana Massacre, and people like Muhammed Atta become radicalized terrorists in response, it is American civilians who pay the price for the stupidity of these so called “experts”.

Wasn’t it enough for the US to create one Shah? Wasn’t it enough that the US armed Saddam Hussein with WMD’s? Hasn’t the US caused enough damage following the advice of these “experts”?

We must stop our unquestioning support of Israel, we must stop turning a blind eye to the aggression and beligerence of Israel, we must stop turning a blind eye to the human rights violations and war crimes committed by Israel that the rest of the world sees but we refuse to acknowledge, we must stop protecting an aggressive and even beligerent government from committing attrocities without repurcussions, because we cannot afford the repurcussions that blind support creates for America.

We cannot afford to allow our blind support of Israel to further radicalize the Middle East against us. We cannot afford to allow the “experts” to fool us into thinking this blind support of Israel will somehow magically “stabilize” the region. Our support of Israel has already radicalized parts of the Middle East against us, and we felt some of the backlash of our blind support on 9/11.
 

The fallacy of “Something must be done” is a fallacy where Alice argues to Bob that some situation is so terrible that something must be done. Once Bob agrees that “something” must be done, Alice then uses that to justify doing anything. Logically speaking, “Something must be done” is a fallacy of equivocation, of shifting meaning.

Alice: Al Queda killed thousands of Americans on 9/11, shouldn’t we do something?

Bob: Yes, of course.

Meanwhile, Alice and Bob have completely different meanings for “something”. Alice is thinking of carpet bombing Iraq, even though Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and Bob is thinking of limited military action in Afghanistan in conjunction with nation building to rebuild its infrastructure. Bob is basing this off the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with the Al Queda attacks on 9/11, among other things.

As a technique of war handwavium, this “something must be done” comes up whenever Bob disagrees with the “something” that Alice is doing, but Alice doesn’t want to talk about her specific actions, so instead generalizes the argument so that they both agree on “doing something”.

The problem is Bob never disagreed on doing something. So Alice’s attempt to drag the discussion into “whether or not something should be done” is redundant from a logical point of view. Bob is already in favor of doing something. But taking the argument back to “doing something” has several advantages for Alice.

First and foremost, it allows Alice to bring up the initial event that started the debate in the first place. If the event is very traumatic and emotional, then pretending that she needs to convine Bob that something must be done allows Alice to reinvoke whatever tragedy started this argument in the first place. 9/11. Terrorist bombing. Whatever. That brings a massive emotional component into the debate, and dilutes the amount of logic that is actually being used in the discussion. It’s an attempt to indirectly appeal to emotions like fear and anger while trying to hide it in civil debate. Except since Bob already wants to do something, so bringing it up is logically redundant.

The second big advantage that “something must be done” gives to Alice is that it brings along with it the implied accusation that Bob doesn’t want to do anything at all, for example, it might imply that Bob in fact thinks the 9/11 attacks were a good thing. When Alice asks “Don’t you think 9/11 was bad enough that something must be done?” she is doing the logical equivalent of asking “Have you stopped beating your wife?” It’s called the Fallacy of Interrogation, andthe problem with it is that the question asked presupposes a definite answer to another question which has not been asked. In Bob’s case here, the unasked question is “Do you support Al Queda?” and the presupposed answer is “yes”. Bob thinks something must be done. It’s just that he think’s the something Alice is doing is the wrong something. Alice brings the debate down to “something must be done” in order to indirectly accuse Bob of not wanting to do anything, of actually siding with Al-Queda and their actions on 9/11.

The next advantage Alice gets by taking the argument back to “something must be done” is that it takes up space, it wears Bob down, chews up time, and attempts to force Bob to expend energy dealing with the question of “something must be done”. With the indirect accusation from Alice that Bob doesn’t want to do anything and that Bob is actully an Al-Queda supporter, Bob can get sucked into a long discussion just trying to defend himself as not being an Al Queda mole. Without realizing it, Bob has been tricked into spending his time arguing that he doesn’t support Al Queda. If Bob spends time arguing that he doesn’t agree with Al Queda and that he doesn’t agree with their actions on 9/11, then when he’s done, all he’s accomplished is to take Alice’s scuttling of the debate about what specifically should be done, defend himself against Alice’s implied question that he supports Al Queda, at which point Bob has managed to elevate the discussion back to that they both agree that “something” must be done. Exactly what Alice wanted him to say. At which point, Alice says she’s tired, others have gotten bored, the comment thread is up to 1000 posts, and the issue of what specifically should be done never gets discussed. At which point, Alice can claim that everyone agreed that “something” must be done, so she then goes and orders the invasion of Iraq in reponse to 9/11.

But probably the most important advantage “something must be done” gives to Alice is that it moves the debate from discussing what specifically it is that Alice proposes doing. Alice doesn’t want to discuss the issues and problems and moral dillemmas involved with bombing Iraq in response to 9/11. She wants to get the debate away from listing all the things that are wrong with her “something”. She wants to get the debate away from proving her “something” is foolhardy tribalism. She wants to get the debate away from what might cause the public to oppose her desire to bomb Iraq. And so she derails the conversation into “something must be done”. It gives her exactly what she wants. It invokes the fear and anger in the audience that they felt on 9/11. It accuses Bob, her debating opponent, of wanting to do nothing, of siding with the enemy, of being an Al Queda operative. And if all goes according to Alice’s plan, Bob will expend time, energy, and words establishing what has already been established: that he wants to do something in response to 9/11, but by the time he does that, the audience will be bored and Bob won’t be able to discuss why he opposes bombing Iraq.

“Something must be done” invokes the emotional response in the audience of the triggering event, appealing to their fear and anger.

“Something must be done” brings implied accusations that the other person is an enemy sympathizer.

“Something must be done” avoids discussing what specifically should be done.

If someone in a debate is invoking the emotional response of an enemy attack, if someone is accusing someone else of being an enemy sympathizer, if someone is trying to avoid discussing the realities on the ground (we’re about to invade Iraq in response to 9/11 and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11), then take a look at that person’s wording and see if they’re not trying to invoke the “something must be done” fallacy.

 

  

 The above graphics come from here. They were on the Israeli Foreign Ministry website up until 4 January 2009, around when Israel launched its ground invasion of Gaza.

Caption: monthly distribution of rocket and mortar attacks by Hamas against Israel, November 2007 to November 2008.

Pretty much everything you’re about to read is reflected in those two graphs. So, here goes.

Israel imposed a blockade against all of Gaza when Hamas won democratic elections in Gaza back in 2006. (source)

The blockade has gone through increasing levels of severity, from cutting off fuel and electricity to causing widespread food shortages, to throwing the area into an economic meltdown. Half of the residents of Gaza live at or below the poverty level. By May of 2008, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Jimmy Carter called Israel’s blockade of Gaza a “human rights crime”. (source) Which is actually interesting, because Israel itself was blockaded by Egypt back in 1967, and back then Israel insisted a blockade was an act of war. (source)

So, Hamas started launching rocket attacks at Israel. The number of rockets and mortars launched by Hamas from Gaza at Israel are shown in the images above. You can see them ramp up in November 2007 and then they drop off to zero around July 2008. What happened in July?

Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire. For every day of calm that Hamas did not fire a rocket at Israel, Israel will send in 5 extra truckloads of cows and 200 tons of cement it ships to Gaza. For every day Hamas fires rockets, Israel reseals the borders. That’s correct, Hamas was willing to stop fighting if Gaza could bring in extra cattle. (source)

Those lousy Hamas. All they ever think about is bringing about the total destruction of Israel.

Or, hamburgers. 

And apparently Hamas was willing to keep the peace and not launch rockets or mortars at Israel for several months. From July 2008 to November 2008, the number of attacks had essentially dropped off to zero. So. What happened in November?

What happened is Israel found a tunnel. Israel’s blockade of Gaza was continuing, even while Hamas was abiding by the ceasefire, and the conditions in Gaza were getting worse and worse. Back in May of 2008, Jimmy Carter had declared the blockade a human rights crime. By October of 2008, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead McGuire arrived in a boat off the coast of Gaza to protest Israel’s continuing blockade of Gaza. (source)

So, given these dire circumstances, people in Gaza were digging tunnels out of Gaza to bypass the blockade that all these Nobel Peace Prize winners had been saying was a human rights violation. They were digging tunnels to smuggle in food, medicine, cigarettes, and even people in and out of Gaza. Militants used the tunnels to smuggle weapons.

So, what happened in November is this: Israel found one of these tunnels and declared that Hamas was intending to use it to attack Israel. As far as I can tell, the evidence they had to show that this tunnel was an “attack” tunnel amounted to George Bush saying that Saddam had moved his biological WMD labs into trailers so he could hide them in the desert. In other words, no evidence whatsoever.

Even if there were evidence that the tunnel was going to be used for an attack, Hamas hadn’t actually used it for an attack, and there was a cease fire in place at the time. So, what does Israel do during this precariously balanced cease fire? Israel sends troops into Gaza, attacks Hamas, kills six members of Hamas, and then pulls back to Israel. (source)

During a cease fire that they’d been trying to get for a year or more, and had been maintained by Hamas for four months, Israel fired upon Hamas, and killed six people.

Exactly what part of “cease” and “fire” do you not understand?

Even if Hamas was planning some attack, the prudent thing would be to catch them in the act so that they violate the cease fire first. Barring that possibility, arrest them. Or something, anything, other than invade, kill, and retreat. The operative word here again is “cease” and “fire” combined to make a term whose meaning is the exact opposite of “invade, fire, kill, retreat”.

The other thing that might help keep this in perspective is that even while Hamas was comlying with this ceasefire, Israel was maintaining a blockade that was starving the people of Gaza. If Israel demands perfection from Hamas or it will attack, then Israel might want to strive a little closer to perfection itself, and stop engaging in a blockade it would have called an act of war if another country had imposed it on Israel. Stop imposing a blockade on Gaza that Nobel Peace Prize winners are calling human rights crimes. Stop starving the people of Gaza, or put up with some tunneling.

So, Israel violates the ceasefire agreement in November of 2008, invades Gaza, kills 6 members of Hamas, and then retreats. All the while maintaining a blockade on the land.

What do you think happens after that?

Duh!

Hamas starts firing rockets again. You can see in the graphs above that the numbers spike up again in November, in response to Israel’s attack and killing of Hamas members.

Israel responds to Hamas rocket fire by further tightening the blockade on Gaza throwing the people further into peril. Food is scarce. Fuel is scarce. Much of the land has no electicity. Clean water becomes unavailable. Running water becomes unavailable.

And what exactly did Israel expect Hamas to do? Were they truly this clueless? Israel violated the ceasefire. Hamas started firing rockets at Israel. Israel further tightened its blockade of Gaza, starving the people there even more. Hamas increased its rocket fire.

The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (a centre-right Israeli intelligence think tank) in a December 31 report titled “Six Months of the Lull Arrangement Intelligence Report,” confirmed that the June 19 truce was only “sporadically violated, and then not by Hamas but instead by … “rogue terrorist organisations”. Instead, “the escalation and erosion of the lull arrangement” occurred after Israel killed six Hamas members on November 4 without provocation and then placed the entire Strip under an even more intensive siege the next day

December 27, 2008, Israel launched a full scale bombardment of Gaza, killing 220 people, including civlians. (source). The current death tolls say that Israel has killed about 640 palestinians, at least 125 of which are civilians, (women, children, and noncombatants). (source)

All of which, according to Israel, was in response to Hamas resuming its rocket attacks against Israel. After Israel violated the cease fire that had been working for four months, because they found a tunnel coming out of a land that they were starving.

According to Israel’s own Foreign Ministry, for all of 2008, Hamas attacks launched from Gaza killed 17 Israelis. 9 civilians. 8 soldiers. 6 civilians were killed by rocket fire. (source)

So, Hamas attacks kill a dozen Israelis. Then Israel and Hamas come up with a cease fire. Hamas honors the cease fire for four months, even while Israel is starving Gaza with a human rights crime called a blockade. Israel then violated the cease fire because they find a tunnel, coming out of the area they are starving, and declared that Hamas is going to attack. Israel then used their prefabricated excuse to violate the ceasefire in November by invading Gaza, attacking Hamas, and killing six of its members before retreating. Hamas then retaliated by resuming its rocket attacks against israel. Israel then tightened its choke hold of a blockade for November and December. Hamas ratcheted up its rocket attacks. And then Israel bombed Gaza and invades, killing at least 125 unarmed civilians.

Right.

Hamas killed 17 Israelis in 2008.

Israel violated the ceasefire because they find a tunnel, kill 6 members of hamas, and then when Hamas resumed its rocket attacks, Israel used the rockets that killed a total of 17 Israelis for an entire year to launch a full scale miiltary bombardment and invasion of Gaza, killing at least 120 Palestinian civlians including women, children, and noncombatants. 

Either (one) Israel is currently being run by a bunch of morons who thought they could violate a ceasefire, while maintaining a human rights violation blockade, and not expect anyone to respond,

or

(two) Israel invented the tunnel thing or overinflated it into a false justification for violating the cease fire, knowing full well that Hamas would resume rocket fire, and give Israel an even thinner excuse to launch a full scale bombardment and invasion.

 Clearly, civlian deaths aren’t Israel’s real priority. Hamas killed 17 Israelis in the whole of 2008. And some of them had to have been before the cease fire, so apparently Israel was willing to work it out. And yet in its bombardment and invasion of the last week, Israel has inflicted an order of magnitude more civlians deaths than Hamas did. So, that can’t be it.

Of course, it is election season in Israel, and the incumbents aren’t doing so well. A nice little display of military force, at the expense of a few innocent palestinian lives, might be sufficient incentive for a politician to approve a war.

One might look at the statements made by a number of israeli officials to see how they really feel about the palestinians. That might help shed some light on their current actions:
http://www.newint.org/issue359/essay.htm/

“Palestinians are like cancer. There are all sorts of solutions to cancerous manifestations. For the time being, I am applying chemotherapy.”
Moshe Y’alon, Israeli Chief-of-Staff

“Eventually we will have to thin out the number of Palestinians living in the territories.”
Eitan Ben Eliahu, Israeli Air Force Commander

“I believe in liquidationists.” (Assassination brigades targeting Palestinian activists)
General Meir Dagan, Head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=13780

Israel’s Minister of Public Security, Avi Dichter, believes punishment should be inflicted “irrespective of the cost to the Palestinians”;

Meir Sheetrit has urged that Israel should “decide on a neighborhood in Gaza and level it”

Deputy defense minister Matan Vilnai talks about bring about a palestinian holocaust.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1226404716066&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter

“it would be pointless for Israel to topple Hamas because the population [of Gaza] is Hamas.”

Hm. 

So, the idea is that this whole thing about the tunnel might be a fabricated smoking gun, about as relevant as paperwork relating to “Niger Yellowcake”, intended to be used to justify violating a ceasefire, knowing full well the response that violation would bring, allowing Israel to justify in its own mind the escalation to full scale bombardment and invasion of Gaza, all because Israel doesn’t really see any difference between civlian palestinians and Hamas militants.

Just a theory.

Though, some think Israel has done this before. (source)

So, in the absolute worst case is this whole tunnel thing, Israel’s violation of the cease fire that had been successfully working for sevaral months (see bar graphs at top), was all an effort to create a Gulf of Tonkin incident to justify a full scale bombardment and invasion of a people they view as little more than insects.  

In the absolute best-case scenario, Israel is run by a bunch of morons who thought they could violate a  working ceasefire agreement because they found a tunnel coming out of a land they were starving. And then they invaded, fired on and killed six members of Hamas, and then retreated, not having  a clue how batshit stupid that just was. You know, to fire on your enemy, during a ceasefire.

If I had to guess, I would guess that for some Israelis, the first case is true. America isn’t the only country to have assholes like Dick Cheney, to have politicians willing to lie their way into a war. Valnai is clearly Israel’s Dick Cheney. And I’d say that for some Israelis,  the second case is true.  America isn’t the only country with people who want to cast themselves as the righteous and the enemy as evil, and hold a nationalistic Indifference to Reality.

And I’m sure that there are also some in Israel who are morally repulsed by the actions their government are taking right now. Even way back in March of 2003, there were Americans who were adamantly opposed to the idea of invading Iraq on the notion that it was foolhardy, ill planned, that Iraq was actually disarmed, and that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. In March, 2003, there were not a lot, but there were some. No doubt there are some Israelis who right now are morally repulsed by the actions of their government.

At this point, all I can say is the world needs to enforce a cease fire on Israel. Hold Israel responsible for violating the cease fire in the first place. Hold Israel responsible for escalating the violence after they violated the cease fire. Hold Israel responsible for the innocent civilians it killed. The world needs to enforce a cease fire on Hamas and their rockets. Reinstate the ceasefire that was working before. And then demand Israel drop this abomination of humanity that is its starvation blockade of Gaza. And maybe, just maybe, get the region heading in some semblance of a direction towards peace again.

And I say the world needs to do it, because there are enough Dick Cheney’s and George W. Bush’s and Paul Wolfowitz’s and other Neocon idiot equivalaents in Israel that they’re not going to willingly stop their self righteous war with Gaza, any more than one could have expected to Dick Cheney to say, “Maybe that whole Iraq thing isn’t such a good idea after all”.

Israel was willing to enter into a ceasefire with Hamas before, it should be willing to do it again, especially since it violated the damn ceasefire in the first place.

 Enough is enough.