US vetoes UN measure against Israeli settlement building

[Thanas]

Hmmm. After checking, it appears the news stories where not talking about the attack, but rather the blockade.

ISRAEL'S blockade of the Gaza Strip was meant to push the area's economy "to the brink of collapse," according to a US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, signalling that Israel was well aware that the policy was taking a heavy toll on the area's civilian population.

Israeli leaders have long maintained that the blockade was necessary to weaken the ruling Hamas militant group. The newly released document, published in Norway's Aftenposten newspaper, indicates that Israel hoped to accomplish that goal by targeting Gaza's 1.5 million people.

According to the March 3, 2008, cable written by an American official, Israeli officials told American diplomats "on multiple occasions that they intend to keep Gaza's economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge."

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev refused to comment.

Australian Newspaper quoting a Norwegian newspaper.

[Bakustra]

Prove it, buddy. Do you have some internal evidence from Israel which would contradict this? The extracts provided by Al-Jazeera, especially for this meeting, indicate that the official Israeli position, as presented by actual Israeli negotiators, was that they would not accept Hamas ruling in the Gaza strip, and so actually planned to invade, overthrow and retreat.

Prove what? that the incidence of rocket attacks dropped after CL? Here

As for Hamas, AFAIK there isn't a public Israeli statement on the subject; but given that, again, Israel and Hamas are effectively at war, opposition to Hamas does not automatically mean Israel would depose any Palestinian regime it "didn't like"

No. Shep made a specific claim in his little post-and-run, that Cast Lead was specifically intended to decrease rocket attacks alone, alongside the implication that the Palestine papers are all faked by those evil Fatah types to make Israel look bad. The problem with "Israel would only do that because it's de facto at war with Hamas" is that it would be de facto at war with any Palestinian government that didn't bow to its will and let settlements continue without a response, and the only other government, Fatah, does bow to Israel's will on that.

In light of the UN report determining that the supposed attacks from hospitals and mosques the Israeli forces used to justify their destruction of said structures are unlikely to have happened, I think it quite plausible that the IDF had as a goal to damage Gaza as much as practical during their invasion. Your version requires that they have lied to the Palestinian Authority about their reasons for doing so, and so requires evidence.

Uh...AFAIR the Goldstone report concluded that mosques weren't used for attacks by examining the case of a single mosque and concluding that therefore it was unlikely any mosques were used in such a fashion; hardly sound methodology even if there wasn't (publicly disseminated at the time) video showing an attack launched from a mosque (which the report did not address).

What about the hospital that Israel blew up, which the Goldstone report also indicated was unlikely to have happened? What about the other war crimes it found evidence for? What about the absurd restrictions of the blockade- which prevent anybody in Gaza from importing the means to produce food?

[bobalot]

Hmmm. After checking, it appears the news stories where not talking about the attack, but rather the blockade.

ISRAEL'S blockade of the Gaza Strip was meant to push the area's economy "to the brink of collapse," according to a US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, signalling that Israel was well aware that the policy was taking a heavy toll on the area's civilian population.

Israeli leaders have long maintained that the blockade was necessary to weaken the ruling Hamas militant group. The newly released document, published in Norway's Aftenposten newspaper, indicates that Israel hoped to accomplish that goal by targeting Gaza's 1.5 million people.

According to the March 3, 2008, cable written by an American official, Israeli officials told American diplomats "on multiple occasions that they intend to keep Gaza's economy on the brink of collapse without quite pushing it over the edge."

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev refused to comment.

Australian Newspaper quoting a Norwegian newspaper.

To be honest, I wasn't aware anybody was saying otherwise to the article you have posted.

It's disgusting collective punishment, but nothing new for Israeli's.

[eyl]

No. Shep made a specific claim in his little post-and-run, that Cast Lead was specifically intended to decrease rocket attacks alone, alongside the implication that the Palestine papers are all faked by those evil Fatah types to make Israel look bad. The problem with "Israel would only do that because it's de facto at war with Hamas" is that it would be de facto at war with any Palestinian government that didn't bow to its will and let settlements continue without a response, and the only other government, Fatah, does bow to Israel's will on that.

For one thing, you're assuming that Hamas would or could prevent settlements - which we don't know given that Hamas was elected after Israel removed all the settlements in Gaza. The "war" with Hamas once they took control Gaza didn't really have anything to do with the settlements

What about the hospital that Israel blew up, which the Goldstone report also indicated was unlikely to have happened? What about the other war crimes it found evidence for? What about the absurd restrictions of the blockade- which prevent anybody in Gaza from importing the means to produce food?

I don't deny that, unfortunately, crimes were committed in the attack on Gaza. But given the methodology of the Goldstone report - the mosque example I quoted above is just the one that stuck in my memory - I don't really rely on it as evidence of specific crimes (such as the hospital you refer to). Of course, the fact that Israel refused to cooperate with the investigation didn't help matters...

[cosmicalstorm]

Is anyone else but me tired of debating the morals or the legal justification for Israels existence or actions?

As long as the issue is an open, festering sore with consequences on a geopolitical scale it's an issue worth discussing. What I don't get is people posting on threads just to express their disinterest in the topic as if that's something equally as or more interesting than the matter at hand.

That's true. I was bored and tired when I made that post.

[MKSheppard]

Prove it, buddy. Do you have some internal evidence from Israel which would contradict this?

I'm supposed to be impressed by so called documents in near impeccable english masquerading as PA authority papers?

For fuck's sake, clicking on the PDF in the jazeera website brings me to a nice PDF of it in nice MS Word format in english; rather than a PDF scan or what of it in the original language -- which would be Arabic -- to prove it's veracity.

I've looked at Al Jazeera's website trying to "explain" these issues. It makes no sense; like their weak explanation that the meetings are conducted in English.

That's all nice and neutral, and avoids offending one side by using hebrew or arabic.

Except that the government transcripts written by either side's government would have been transcribed into their language for ease of use within that government and for nationalistic reasons.

Your version requires that they have lied to the Palestinian Authority about their reasons for doing so, and so requires evidence.

I see you completely fucking misread my goddamn post.

Here. I'll repost it for you to understand:

No actually, the papers indicate what the PLO (i'm sorry, Palestinian Authority) THINKS was the reason for Cast Lead.

What someone THINKS can be totally different than the actual truth.

For example, many officials in the Soviet Union believed that the Space Shuttle was actually an orbital bomber in disguise, meant to deliver a multi-megaton warhead against the Moscow region; due to Soviet economists and engineers analyzing the publically given figures that NASA put forth for the shuttle's economics.

The Soviets rightly concluded that the figures made no sense economically.

In any case it's a moot point since THANAS THE GERMANOID has pointed out that they were talking about the blockade of Gaza, not Cast Lead; e.g. 'punish Hamas'.

[MKSheppard]

Except that the government transcripts written by either side's government would have been transcribed into their language for ease of use within that government and for nationalistic reasons

In keeping with that, here's something actually credibly from a government archive.

LINK

This memorandum relates to a meeting between the general secretary of the East German Socialist Unity Party, Erich Honecker, and Defense Minister Heinz Kessler. Honecker describes his conversation with Soviet Ambassador Vyacheslav Kochemassov about changes in Soviet policy. The Soviet leadership thinks that arms cutbacks based on reciprocity with the West are not feasible, and that therefore, the Warsaw Pact (WP) must make unilateral reductions. Kochemasov implies that these cuts should take place before the next round of talks on conventional armed forces in Europe (CFE) in Vienna. The Soviet ambassador informs Honecker that his government plans to withdraw four armored divisions from East Germany and to convert several tank units into motor rifle divisions, contributing to an overall more defensive stance of the WP.

[Thanas]

Shep, I don't want to go on a thread tangent here, but so far, the document does not mention armored divisions or anything. It says that they will reduce the Army and Navy (not the airforce) by 1 million men (however, the number in parenthesis is half of that). I suspect the rest is covered in other pages.

[Bakustra]

Prove it, buddy. Do you have some internal evidence from Israel which would contradict this?

I'm supposed to be impressed by so called documents in near impeccable english masquerading as PA authority papers?

For fuck's sake, clicking on the PDF in the jazeera website brings me to a nice PDF of it in nice MS Word format in english; rather than a PDF scan or what of it in the original language -- which would be Arabic -- to prove it's veracity.

I've looked at Al Jazeera's website trying to "explain" these issues. It makes no sense; like their weak explanation that the meetings are conducted in English.

That's all nice and neutral, and avoids offending one side by using hebrew or arabic.

Except that the government transcripts written by either side's government would have been transcribed into their language for ease of use within that government and for nationalistic reasons.

Your version requires that they have lied to the Palestinian Authority about their reasons for doing so, and so requires evidence.

I see you completely fucking misread my goddamn post.

Here. I'll repost it for you to understand:

No actually, the papers indicate what the PLO (i'm sorry, Palestinian Authority) THINKS was the reason for Cast Lead.

What someone THINKS can be totally different than the actual truth.

For example, many officials in the Soviet Union believed that the Space Shuttle was actually an orbital bomber in disguise, meant to deliver a multi-megaton warhead against the Moscow region; due to Soviet economists and engineers analyzing the publically given figures that NASA put forth for the shuttle's economics.

The Soviets rightly concluded that the figures made no sense economically.

In any case it's a moot point since THANAS THE GERMANOID has pointed out that they were talking about the blockade of Gaza, not Cast Lead; e.g. 'punish Hamas'.

There are a number of layers of meaning here that I'm going to unpack. I'm not addressing you directly from this point on, Shep, since you've made it clear that engaging you in discussion is pointless unless the person agrees with you. Now, Shep here is proposing initially two things- that the papers are faked, and that they were specifically released by the Palestinian Authority (note that he calls it the PLO, for likely complex reasons that nevertheless probably boil down to Shep considering Likud to be a bunch of liberal wussies) to discredit Israel.

Both of these are hardly likely. The Guardian independently authenticated the papers, which means that fakery would have to involve a conspiracy between the Palestinian Authority, Al-Jazeera, and the Guardian. It also raises the question of why exactly the Palestinian Authority would damage itself with the papers, which hardly paint a good picture of it and would hurt its image among the Palestinian people.

Shep then brings up language issues, 'supplementing' this with an East German memo. However, he ignores that, if Al-Jazeera is lying about that, it seems odd that none of the participants has said so, even though the PA has said that the papers have been taken "out of context" and "altered". He also ignores that many of the documents are given by Al-Jazeera as "an English translation", such as this account, together with translator's notes. In addition, various former negotiators on both Israeli and Palestinian ends consider the documents genuine as the Guardian reported. Even Saeb Erekat, who has called them inaccurate, has admitted in an editorial for the Guardian that the essence of the papers, that Israel is unwilling to negotiate, is true.

In other words, in order to dismantle these papers, Shep would need Israeli and/or (preferably and, so that he could avoid the question of whether Israel is trustworthy) American records of the talks that show these to be fabrications. But unfortunately, those hypothetical papers, should they exist and Shep be vindicated, are victim to the long-held fetish for secrecy that infects the powerful throughout the world.

But then Shep advances a new argument; that these papers are only what the Palestinians believe. Now, some of you might wonder how this is compatible with what he said just in the first part of the post, but like I said, layers of meaning. Doublethink is just one of those layers, which goes well with Shep's peculiar kind of duckspeak which he displays here. He ignores that I linked to minutes rather than to internal memos or emails. Therefore, he needs to show that the Palestinian negotiators deliberately falsified the minutes of that meeting for some purpose that did not involve making themselves look better, or that Israeli negotiators deliberately and consciously lied to the Palestinians. He has done neither, but instead quacked out irrelevant historical trivia, which is one of his favored tactics. He then ends the post by not understanding the distinction between Wikileaks and Al-Jazeera's Transparency Unit and the document caches they have each released.

I hope that the discerning reader will be able to understand more about how Shep and his posts work when dealing with him in the future.