Palestinians blow hole in border wall... to go shopping.
news.yahoo.com
I know that this is off topic for Hacker News, but it was just too weird to let it pass.
news.yahoo.com
But Israel has other factors making it difficult to be consistent, too. Specifically, variable international pressure, and inconsistent support from the US.
The heart of the problem, which makes a policy difficult to agree on, is that on the one hand Israel ought to defend itself vigorously enough that zero innocent Israelis are killed by violent thugs. And on the other, Israel is under massive pressure not to do that, and not even the US will support Israel in defending its citizens enough to keep all of them alive.
But not at the expense of N>0 innocent Palestinian civilians killed.
Now add a reason that doing this kills the criminal's innocent son. He left his son tied up at home, and was planning to untie the kid when he returned, but he never got home, and the kid wasn't found in time and starved to death. Or the man actually was a good father, but he and his son were involved in a dangerous project, and he would have been fine, but now without his father's help, he is killed.
So, defending yourself caused an innocent to die.
But it wasn't wrong of you to do that. The fault lies with the criminal. He is responsible for getting himself shot by breaking into your house and trying to rob and murder you. And because getting himself shot is his responsibility, so are the consequences. He got his own son killed, not you.
Agree so far?
More innocent Palestinian children have died than all of the Israeli casualites put together
Agreed? (If not, do a quick google search and you can compare #'s across several human rights groups)
A kid with a rock VS. a tank
Anyhoo, back to hacking!!
And on the flip side, the gunman is perfectly happy to use them as human shields.
I was your typical liberal anti-zionist "omg the poor Palestians" Jew until about a month ago. I did the free trip to Israel sponsored by insane wealthy philanthropists and the Israeli government. http://www.birthrightisrael.com (it's free with no catch, other than getting to experience brilliantly constructed propaganda -- they say you need to be Jewish to go along but they don't check. 2/3 of the people on my trip were atheist/secular, kind of like Israel itself. All that matters is that you are 18-26 at the time of the trip. Email me if you're interested in going, I can answer any questions.)
My conclusion after the trip is that the Palestinians bring it on themselves. I wish that Israel would stop killing innocents. But if they made radical concessions, like completely removing their military from the occupied territories, tearing down the racist segregation wall, and returning East Jerusalem to Arab control, acts of terrorism would increase.
So... I would love to hear what you or anyone think is the solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, keeping in mind that the truly ideal solution, making Jerusalem an international city, will never be agreed upon by the Palestinians.
These lengths include:
- holding off on killing known terrorist leaders when they have a chance, knowing this puts Israel at greater risk, because they believe the method available to kill him has too high a risk of collateral damage
- sending their young men door to door, in very dangerous narrow streets with booby traps, snipers, because getting up close and personal is safer for the Palestinians, though not for the Israelis, who have the power to just bomb the area (which is what most countries would do, like Russia. But in fact, try to name another country which routinely takes similar risks to protect somewhat hostile non-citizens.)
Looks like that number is only for 2007, they haven't been as good historically which means it may be an anomaly, but let's hope not. And this isn't a great source either, it doesn't cite its sources.
the link actually mentions historical rates and how they've improved. but yes, doesn't cite sources.