[quote]Aragorn wrote:
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
An interesting article which I would like some of you (particularly Doc and JB) to read and take a look at. I have a couple things on my mind concerning it but I’d like to see what others think
What we have here is an opinion disguised as fact, and the facts themselves are not entirely correct. This is either sloppiness (for which the Huffington Post is notorious) or intentional (duplicitous, and the Huff Po is notorious for this as well.)
First: rhetoric.
The disguise is that of even-handedness, and includes elements of truth. But notice the rhetoric which places some arguable “facts” within an otherwise reasonable question. (Remember the adage, the best lie is hidden within a sliver of truth.) When one reads such questions, beware.
Too many examples in this sorry article to point out here.
Next: fact checking.
Note, for example, the link “outright cruelty.” Easy enough to swallow, right?
But the link is to an article of June 2013, the photo is from 2009, and the whole story of IDF using children as human shields is–at best–discredited or in doubt. Note that the investigations–which included contrary testimony–of the decried events include trial and punishment for those soldiers who may have done this. (And has Hamas, Fatah or the Palestinian Authority ever investigated–let alone punished–it minions for putting its great numbers of its civilians and children at risk? I think not.) The distinction here is that the IDF punishes its rogue soldiers; but it is the policy of the PA, Hamas and Fatah to encourage the use of civilians shields, a war crime.
Believe what you will. But why anyone would waste their time with HuffPo–let alone offer any of its opinions credulity–escapes me.[/quote]
Well in answer to your question, simply because it was linked to me by a friend well meaning but ill informed, so I read it. Some of the sloppiness I am undoubtedly unaware of (although as you say they are notorious for playing fast and loose), but on the whole my opinion largely mirrors yours. This is particularly true in the case of “IDF cruelty”, since while all cruelty is despicable not all cruelty is equally approved or punished. Legitimate government punishes those, while terrorists encourage.
I was thinking more along the lines of the expansion of west bank settlements or the feasibility of a solution with those, because I am ignorant of the west bank situation.
[/quote]
Oh! No hurt intended!
In the morass of half-truths I did not even pay attention to the West Bank question.
(And there is nothing new in this since Yeshaiahu Liebowitz published in, I think, 1967)
You have witnessed Gaza converted to a fortress and a sapper’s den, firing rockets and planning on blowing up kindergartens and capturing innocents. (The biased opinion also linked link to Israelis in Sderot seemed imply that it was a joy to watch the destruction; these were people who had no relief from constant bombardment and had 15 seconds to find shelter. They are not “celebrating” anything but the relief from random lethal threat.)
If I were a policy maker I could see the positives of settlements: they can be traded away (and were, in Gaza), and they are situated along the spine of hills in Judea and Samaria that will serve as the launching points for ballistics whenever an armed Palestinian State may decide.
So the answer is a disarmed Palestinian state. Now who will accept that as a starting point? When that happens, the settlements will stop.
Note, too, that the writer, Pakistani, nowhere indicates a demand for a “right of return” of millions of Muslims who were evicted from India, 67 years ago this week.
