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Aswad -> RE: "Welcome to America's 30 year War" (5/24/2013 10:28:51 PM)
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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle
More than anything else, it is an act of resistance and defiance, an assertion that 'we are here and we are not going anywhere else'. Which is why it's intolerable for the IDF, and the Israeli Govt which seems to insist on total capitulation on all levels by the Palestinians. It is a direct challenge to Israeli ethnic cleansing which aims to drive the Palestinians off their lands and to absorb the West bank into Israel proper.
One of your better analyses.
Sometimes, you can't win, and defiance is the next best thing.
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It would be an act of criminal negligence to deploy troops to the West Bank with out some training in crowd control.
My thoughts, too. I mean, they have less-lethal options (though, under the circumstances, I'm fairly sure the threshold for using them would be very low, so they would end up becoming an addition to killing, rather than a substitute, just like the availability of tasers has led to more tasings but not fewer shootings).
When the Afghans were throwing rocks at the Norwegian ISAF detachment (and these were adults, not teenagers, nor did they exactly confine themselves to rocks), our troops usually did precisely what they had been trained to do, which is to stand their ground, with shields and other gear, keeping their position safe while trying to calm things down, without firing at the civilians.
Part of the reason for this was the recognition that we, as the occupying force, were the aggressors here.
Part of it was, military forces shouldn't fire at civilians, except as a last resort measure of self defense.
And part of it was that we knew that firing at the crowd would come back to bite us in the ass later.
The IDF could stand to bear those three things in mind, as they all apply in Palestine.
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So it's difficult to avoid concluding that the IDF responses are calculated, that the IDF and Israeli Govt see some advantage in using lethal force against Palestinian youths.
It keeps the Palestinians aggressive and violent, making it easier to curry sympathy and also easier to excuse their excess, even though they have options the Palestinians don't (and refuse to use those options). It also keeps the hard liners happy. Let's bear in mind, fundamentalism and nationalism aren't confined to Arabs or Muslims or whatever. Zero tolerance is a phrase that gets a lot of smiles in various quarters, unless one is on the receiving end of it.
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As such it could contravene the Geneva Conventions, and constitute a war crime.
All that remains for it to be, is for the war crimes tribunals to recognize Palestine as a state, which they don't yet dare for fear of retaliation from the US, which has- under Obama- repeatedly threatened to withdraw support and/or funding for any international arenas of cooperation that don't play along with the US domestic policy of supporting Israel (let's also be clear that this is domestic policy, not international policy, as was stated clearly by the US representative to the UN).
The UN has accorded Palestine recognition as a state, so it's only a matter of time before Israel will have to face the music, but they and the US will fight to keep that from happening as long as possible, of course. When it eventually does happen, Israel will of course pretend they've been on board with the idea from the very beginning, as will the US, and by then, the relevant parties will have been prepped as scapegoats to carry off the sins of their respective governments, as is the ancient Jewish custom (la-azaɂzeyl). Let's hope it's as good for the international community as the original ritual was for the communities in which it was practiced.
IWYW,
— Aswad.
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