Talk:Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 2004/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Morality and violence

Does anyone here have a preference for suicidal attempts over house demolitions?

Or, to put it another way, have any cases been made in the worldwide debate about the Arab-Israeli conflict about the relative MORAL merits of suicide bombing against civilians in Israeli vs. house demolition against Arabs in the West Bank?

I think the moral dimension is important, if not "key", to the entire issue. --Uncle Ed 19:51, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't quite understand what you mean. All I can say is that I'm against collective judgments that come as a result of individual acts. -- Dissident 02:42, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

What part of the moral dimension is important don't you understand? --Uncle Ed 15:21, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't think you'll find anyone here who has a preference of bombings of civilian targets over house demolitions (not resulting in any casualties of course). However, two wrongs don't make a right. -- Dissident 20:59, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Demolishing a house is bad, but saving human lives must come first. One can rebuild a house, but no one can revive innocent people or repair health of the maimed. Razing the terrorists' houses or building the security fence is done to prevent possible future attacks. It is a moral thing to do. Another dimension here is systematic glorification and incitement of terror attacks in Palestinian official media, mosques, schools (from kindergartens to universities). I can provide links to back this up. --Humus sapiens 22:21, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Demolishing houses of people that you already know or suspect to be terrorists is akin to challenging them to hurt you. Hardly a moral or wise thing to do. Worst of all, it fuels the hate that makes the bombings possible. In the long run it probably costs more lives than it saves. Luis Dantas 23:31, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Would you say, policing against criminal gangs is "akin to challenging them to hurt you"? To stop what "fuels the hate" is correct, but used in the wrong context here. Millions of innocent people were murdered because Nazi and Commie propaganda fueled the hate in the 30s-40s. See above what fuels the hate today. If you can propose more effective approach to stop future terrorists, let the world know. Just in case you want to propose "stop the occupation": 1) The conflict has started way before the occupation of 1967 or 1948, and 2) It has been tried in 1993-2000. Didn't work. Anything better? --Humus sapiens 01:34, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Leaving the fairness of the comparison aside, if I were a policeman in a troubled part of the city I would make a great effort not to destroy said "criminal gangs"' place of living - because if I did destroy such a place that would only give them that much more of a motivation to invade my own home and take it by force by any means possible, perhaps even with risk to their own lives and limbs. Mind you, the comparison _is_ far from perfect to begin with. Luis Dantas 02:03, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't really think we will come to an agreement. Some people will continue to argue that the Palestinian or the Israeli has done nothing wrong and that the other side is to blame for everything. So, here is my proposal to end this stupid filibuster:

Lets color-code all items. Israelis killed can be written with blue text and Palestinians with green. Then we have the text "If you are pro-Israel, read only the blue text. If you are pro-Palestine, read only the green text." In that way, Wikipedia doesn't have to concern itself with the perceived moral equivalency problem in listing both sides score-poi.. er casualties on the same page. BL 01:02, Feb 28, 2004 (UTC)

I don't know if there is support for color coding in Wikipedia, but otherwise it is a sound suggestion. Luis Dantas 02:03, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Martin Harper opposes color coding, and so do I. Some people are color-blind (literally, not metaphorically).

If the purpose of the "violence" article is to prove that one said is more in the right, or even entirely in the right, then the article's purpose is doomed to failure. Wikipedia never takes sides: it cannot say that one side is more right than the other. It can only report arguments by identified advocates on these matters.

The two most commonly-expressed points of view (POV) that I've heard or seen are:

1. The Israelis are in the wrong, so we Arabs resort to terrorism from a position of weakness to force them to do the right thing: namely, give us all the land we ask for.
2. The Arabs are in the wrong, so we Israelis use as much force as our conscience or prudence allows, to stop them from taking over our land or injuring our people.

I do hope we all can agree that Wikipedia will not and must not endorse either of these POV. And tweaking them slightly won't help: the Wikipedia simply cannot take sides. --Uncle Ed 14:16, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"Terrorism" vs "Military action"

I am here only because I have had enough. I have no ideological vested interest on either side of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. I have an intense anger against both parties in the conflict, for continuing to target, either through commission or omission, children and babies. I am sick to death of seeing photos of 12-year-old boys from one side blown to bits by rockets one day and 12-year-old girls lying in their own blood, riddled with machine gun slugs the next. I cannot express that anger strongly enough here, except to suggest that any person with the remotest vestige of political power from either side be forcibly removed from the region, placed on a small, remote island generously supplied with rockets, bombs, and grenades, and left undisturbed for ten years.

Before the flames start, let me say I don't really see this as a practical solution. But when a supposedly neutral statement upon which we are supposed to vote looks like this:

* Option 2: Multiple, separate timelines. One of Palestinian terrorism against Israel; one of Israeli military action against Palestinians; and possibly others.

I must question the whole point of NPOV. Who let this by? Who allowed that we choose between "terrorism" and "military action"? Violence, for the love of life, is violence. Had these two phrases been replaced with the word which describes, in as equal a way as I can think, "violence", there might be some validity to the question. As it is, all it's good for is provoking rants. Like this one. Denni 05:20, 2004 May 4 (UTC)

Victims have name and age

User:BL repeatedly removes the names and details of May 2, 2004 ambush and intentional killing of 34-year-old Tali Hatual, eight months pregnant, and her four daughters, ages 2 to 11, making this murder to look just as a number. Wikipedia is supposed to be a NPOV source of knowledge, even if it makes someone a little uncomfortable. --Humus sapiens|Talk 00:54, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

FYI, since the compromise I offered didn't work and there is no comment from User:BL who engages in edit war imposing his self-proclaimed policy of removing the victims' names and ages, I posted Wikipedia:Requests for comment --Humus sapiens|Talk 20:28, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

If you were murdered, would your mom and dad want your name published? If they weren't political pundits? BL 10:34, May 11, 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately, what goes in Wikipedia is quite frequently NOT what your mom and dad would want. They would not be thinking from a neutral point of view. I think names and ages are important for 2 reasons: 1) external validation of the data, and 2) sometimes you need statictics on the death of innocent children in order to facilitate and end to the cycle of violence. I understand why you would feel obligated to remove names and ages from a personal account... but this isn't a personal account. The information deserves to be known. Bex

I'd like to thank BL for his/her concern, but I find it misplaced:

1. If someone searches an encylopedia for e.g. "Tali Hatual", they should be able to find it. It is notable enough now. Welcome to WP, where we share the knowledge.
2. The details of this heinous crime should be exposed to prevent more. By turning deaths of innocent people into mere numbers you are hiding the crucial facts of what happened. I strongly believe their relatives would would want to preclude similar ambushes and deaths of innocent children. Concealing information only helps the perpetrators.
3. The unintended deaths of Rachel Corrie and Mohammed al-Dura (possibly killed by the PLO/HAMAS) are being widely used by anti-Israel propaganda. Why don't you start a crusade to stop using their names in inciting hatred? --Humus sapiens|Talk 20:35, 11 May 2004 (UTC)