[Lysistrata]

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/474730.html

A group of rabbis, heads of yeshivas from the West Bank and the rabbinical council of Yesha (West Bank and Gaza settlements) have issued a public call to the government to toughen its fighting policies in the territories even at the cost of civilian lives, declaring that the army should show less regard for the welfare of the Palestinians if terrorists are hiding in their midst.

The call, sent in a letter to Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, was issued by a number of prominent hardline rabbis, including Haim Druckman, the head of the Bnei Akiva religious youth group; Eliezer Melamed, the head of Har Bracha yeshiva; and Yuval Sharlo, a head of a yeshiva in Petah Tikva which combines Torah learning with active IDF service.

"There is no war in the world in which it is possible to delineate entirely between the population and the [enemy] army, neither in the U.S. war in Iraq, the Russian war in Chechnya, nor in Israel's wars with its enemies." the rabbis wrote.

The rabbis' statement posed the question, "Should the IDF fight the enemy, if civilians [on the other side] will be killed, or should the IDF refrain from fighting, and thus endanger our civilians?" The rabbis quote the sage Rabbi Akiva in responding that "Our lives come first."

"Christians preaching 'turn the other cheek' will not cause us to panic, and we will not be impressed by those who prefer the lives of our enemies on our own lives."

[Logic]

And exactly what would change? The IOF already slaughters civilians and value Palestinian lives less than Jewish Israeli lives.

Isn't this just a cry for attention and a declaration of support for the aparteidh policies of the Israeli government?

[lil'babykitten]

Idiots. As if Palestinian civilians haven't suffered enough at the hands of an already careless IOF.

This letter has been written by a bunch of Jewish extremists, their sentiments are no different than that of the extremists that exist on the Palestinian side. It serves only to add fuel to the fire that has been burning for years and years.

[realitybath]

Originally posted by Lysistrata:
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/474730.html
"There is no war in the world in which it is possible to delineate entirely between the population and the [enemy] army, neither in the U.S. war in Iraq, the Russian war in Chechnya, nor in Israel's wars with its enemies." the rabbis wrote.

wierd, that's the same reasoning terrorists use.
its actually logically valid, but is suprising to see it explicity enunciated by a rabbi.
The examples given favour the idea that this logic applies to one side(potential allies of Isreal) of the conflicts, and not the other.

Kudo's to quickly latching on to the Chechnya hottopic, never would have seen that coming.

See, it pays to get attacked. It wins you friends.

(i didn't comment on validity of their overall agenda, as i haven't been following the region lately)

[Logic]

Does this mean that Judaism supports the killing of innocents?

[vmarks]

One comment, and only one:

Rabbis are basing this on the notion that it is okay to kill if it prevents murder. (After all, the commandment is Thou Shalt Not Murder.)

After all, Israeli soldiers do not intentionally kill non-combatants, while Palestinians intentionally kill mothers and children while seatbelted in cars at point blank range.

There is a quantifiable difference, don't be blind to it.

[dcolton]

Originally posted by vmarks:
There is a quantifiable difference, don't be blind to it.

Worth repeating.

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by vmarks:
After all, Israeli soldiers do not intentionally kill non-combatants..

Nice apologist stance you took there for the radical Jews. Your position becomes clearer and clearer after each one of your posts.

[Logic]

Originally posted by vmarks:
One comment, and only one:

Rabbis are basing this on the notion that it is okay to kill if it prevents murder. (After all, the commandment is Thou Shalt Not Murder.)

After all, Israeli soldiers do not intentionally kill non-combatants, while Palestinians intentionally kill mothers and children while seatbelted in cars at point blank range.

There is a quantifiable difference, don't be blind to it.

I see, so if the Palestinians feel that killing Israelis will prevent murder it is completely OK for them to kill some Israelis.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[Chinasaur]

What part of "Thou shalt not kill" don't you get.

[Logic]

Originally posted by Chinasaur:
What part of "Thou shalt not kill" don't you get.

Asking me, vmarks or the Rabbis?

[Chinasaur]

To anyone who thinks more killing ever solves anything.

[vmarks]

Originally posted by Chinasaur:
What part of "Thou shalt not kill" don't you get.

The part where there's a difference between killing and murder and the sixth commandment is correctly translated as "Thou shalt not murder" not "Thou shalt not kill".

See, when you read it in the original Hebrew, you don't lose the meaning in translation.

Indeed, "kill" in English is an all-encompassing verb that covers the taking of life in all forms and for all classes of victims. That kind of generalization is expressed in Hebrew through the verb "harag." However, the verb that appears in the Torah's prohibition is a completely different one, " ratsah" which, it would seem, should be rendered "murder." This root refers only to criminal acts of killing.

Some distinguished Jewish philosophers believed that "thou shalt not kill" is a perfectly accurate rendering of the sixth commandment. Maimonides, for example, wrote that all cases of killing human beings involve violations of the command, even if the violation happens to be overridden by other mitigating factors. It has been suggested that this tradition underlies the virtual elimination of capital punishment in Rabbinic law.

Hypothetical example to clarify matters for you: A person wields a gun in the face of your mother and claims he will fire. You are likewise armed and have a clear shot to the person threatening your mother's life. Killing him to save your mother's life is clearly permissible. If someone else dies because he fires into the air and the bullet comes down and kills a noncombatant, well, that death is sad, unintended, and regrettable but not a violation of the commandment.

Israel has apologised and paid compensation on occasion to noncombatants killed by soldiers. Israel does not intentionally kill noncombatants, but clearly, Palestinian terrorists do intentionally kill non-combatants in large numbers, and never has a Palestinian apologised or offered compensation.

[chris v]

Originally posted by Chinasaur:
What part of "Thou shalt not kill" don't you get.

The Kill part, apparently.

[Taliesin]

Originally posted by vmarks:
One comment, and only one:

Rabbis are basing this on the notion that it is okay to kill if it prevents murder. (After all, the commandment is Thou Shalt Not Murder.)

After all, Israeli soldiers do not intentionally kill non-combatants, while Palestinians intentionally kill mothers and children while seatbelted in cars at point blank range.

There is a quantifiable difference, don't be blind to it.

That's interesting, it's the same reasoning the palestinian resistance-groups, that resort to not only lead a guerillia-war, but also to retaliate for killed civilians, are using. They basically say that killing civilians of the people of the enemy in retaliation for the killing of civilians of the own people is justified, as it saves lifes in the future, as it restrains the israelic army regarding killing of civilians, when they know that retaliation is guaranteed.

In the case of the palestinians, such a tactic of killing known resistance-fighters eventhough civilians are likely to be killed along the way, would prove counterproductive, as it would generate new resistance-fighters, likely even more than were killed in that instance.

Regarding the other points you made: Off course the israelic army is killing civilians deliberately, as occupation is a deliberate oppression of other people, and oppression always kills civilians. The interesting thing is that the israelic army doesn't have to specifically target civilians (which is done often by israelic snipers and settlers) to achieve the killings of them.

The condition of occupation and oppression, including the destruction of harvests, infrastructure, the economic hardship imposed upon them, the arbritrary emprisons, the daily raids, and espescially the military-operations conducted while a media-ban is issued, and also the numerous wars that Israel has started have served the intended purpose of killing civilians, without the worldwide public noticing. Sure, long after the facts the death of the civilians sometimes achieve to be documented in some Red Crescent- or Amnesty International- or some UN-report, but then it is merely a cold statistic that doesn't get any attention.

The sad fact is that, nowadays, what doesn't happen in front of a CNN-camera broadcasted live and in colour hasn't happened at all.

That's why most of the world only see and mourn the deaths of israelis, russians and americans through retaliation of oppressed people, because the resistance-groups don't have the might to issue a media-ban in the areas they want to operate while their oppressors have and use that might.

On top of that there is a new form of racism in western media, that seems to measure the death of a western human much higher than a dead asian, arab or african human. It's not only the understandable concentration on the death of people from the same country, it also extends to people from other countries that share the same ethnic background.

Taliesin

[vmarks]

Red Crescent and UN ambulances are used by terrorists as transport. It's absurd to pretend that they should be protected when they violate Geneva Conventions.

http://inhonor.net/videos/uped/fl_video.php?f_num=69500

Similarly, Israel attacking leaders and organizers of attacks is not attacking noncombatants. If one noncombatant dies in the course of taking care of combatants, this is regrettable, and Israel apologises.

But don't pretend that it is the equivalent of a bus bombing, or roadblocking a mother's car and shooting her babies while seatbelted in the back.

[Cody Dawg]

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Chinasaur:
What part of "Thou shalt not kill" don't you get?

What part of "bad translation into English" do you not understand? (Actually, it was a bad translation into Latin from the Septuegent.)

The Commandment is "Thou shalt not murder". I strongly urge you to study your Hebrew before wading too heavily into this topic. I would provide further instruction, but at this time I'm a bit busy discussing this very issue with my class. Perhaps later.

[Chinasaur]

Ahh..thanks for clarifying.

Killing=Ok
Murder=Bad.

Now I get it.

Thanks again.

[lil'babykitten]

I shall remember this thread the next time the Palestinians attack Israel.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
I shall remember this thread the next time the Palestinians attack Israel.

Feel free. However, if they're purposely targeting civilians (their main M.O.), I don't see how it'll help you.

[lil'babykitten]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Feel free. However, if they're purposely targeting civilians (their main M.O.), I don't see how it'll help you.

Israel purposely targets civilians too.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by lil'babykitten:
Israel purposely targets civilians too.

No, I don't believe they do. Sometimes civilians get caught in the crossfire between the terrorists and Israeli police, and that's bad, but Israel isn't targeting them.

[djohnson]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
No, I don't believe they do. Sometimes civilians get caught in the crossfire between the terrorists and Israeli police, and that's bad, but Israel isn't targeting them.

True. If there is a firefight and a civilian walks into the mix, whos fault is it?

[Logic]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
No, I don't believe they do. Sometimes civilians get caught in the crossfire between the terrorists and Israeli police, and that's bad, but Israel isn't targeting them.

I'm sorry but using a 500kg bomb on an apartment building to get one suspected terrorist/resistance fighter just proves that the IOF deliberately targets innocent civilians. Claiming otherwise is either ignorance or deliberate distortion of the truth.

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Logic:
I'm sorry but using a 500kg bomb on an apartment building to get one suspected terrorist/resistance fighter just proves that the IOF deliberately targets innocent civilians. Claiming otherwise is either ignorance or deliberate distortion of the truth.

And how many civilians were killed to get "one terrorist"? Sorry, I don't buy it. Care to Back That Up™?

Since when did you start calling the terrorist scum "resistance fighters"?

[PacHead]

Resistance fighters, yeah right.

What are they resisting ? Busses ?

As for Israel, they need to take off their silk gloves and start making continuous, non-stop attacks inorder to eliminate the terrorists. They should also keep working on their fence/security barrier, inorder to keep the homicidal maniacs out.

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by vmarks:
After all, Israeli soldiers do not intentionally kill non-combatants, ...

I agree with the rest.

But Love to see evidence of this. Israeli soldiers themselves call BS to this statement. So you must know something even they don't know.

[Logic]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
And how many civilians were killed to get "one terrorist"? Sorry, I don't buy it. Care to Back That Up™?

Since when did you start calling the terrorist scum "resistance fighters"?

I'll back that up as soon as I can, very busy day.

I call the ones attacking the IOF in the occupied areas and elsewhere resistance fighters. I call those attacking civilians terrorists.

You and your ilk on the other hand call every Palestinian a terrorist and every action by the IOF "legitimate".

See that's the difference between the Zionists and me. I can distuingish between a fair fight and terrorism. You can't.

[Logic]

I'm sorry, I lied.

It was a 1000kg laser guided bomb.

Linky

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Logic:
I'll back that up as soon as I can, very busy day.

I call the ones attacking the IOF in the occupied areas and elsewhere resistance fighters. I call those attacking civilians terrorists.

You and your ilk on the other hand call every Palestinian a terrorist and every action by the IOF "legitimate".

See that's the difference between the Zionists and me. I can distuingish between a fair fight and terrorism. You can't.

No, not all Palestinians are terrorists, just the ones who strap bombs on to themselves (or their children). Please direct me to where I said that. Also, I never claimed that all actions by the IOF are legitimate, though I do believe that the vast majority are.

[dcolton]

Originally posted by Logic:
I'm sorry, I lied.

It was a 1000kg laser guided bomb.

Linky

The Palestinians should have been trying to capture the suspected terrorist. If they did their job, Israel wouldn't have to do it for them

[Shaddim]

Originally posted by Logic:
I'm sorry, I lied.

It was a 1000kg laser guided bomb.

Linky

Looks as if Israel offered their apologies and condolences for the strike. Doesn't appear that they were aware that civilians were in harm's way.

However, as I've said before, when you "sleep with dogs you get fleas". If you know your neighbor is a wanted terrorist and you don't take action (or at least get away from them), you just may not wake up in the morning. I'm not saying that I fuly agree with that policy, but that reasoning isn't completely out of line.

[Logic]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Looks as if Israel offered their apologies and condolences for the strike. Doesn't appear that they were aware that civilians were in harm's way.

Do you really think that the IOF is so incompetent that they would not know the situation around a target of theirs? Do you really think that they dropped a 1000kg bomb into one of the most densely populated areas of Palestine and expected there to be no civilians around? Do you know how a laser guided bomb works?

Trust me on this, I've been trained for missions similar to this. This was no mistake. A figher doesn't fly with a 1000kg bomb by mistake, a laser guided bomb doesn't accidentally hit a target that is surrounded by sleeping innocent civilians, the apology is worthless since it didn't come until the international community expressed their outrage. Up until Israel heard what the international community had to say about this strike(yes, even the US condemned it) Israel said it was a success. Why would they declare it a success if the later apologise for it?

Trust me on this, this was no mistake. They chose a 1000kg bomb, and they chose a laser guided bomb, and they chose to deliver it with an F-14(IIRC), and they chose to deliver it at night, and they chose to attack the suspected terrorist when he was asleep in a big apartment complex. Don't even try to tell the relatives of the victims that this was just a mistake and that they should take the Israeli apology as anything worth listening to.


As for the rest of your post:

You could apply the same reasoning but from the Palestinian POV. It would be just as legitimate and that is what is dangerous about it.

[itai195]

Originally posted by Logic:
You and your ilk on the other hand call every Palestinian a terrorist and every action by the IOF "legitimate".

I don't, personally. But as Israel claims their target in the building was a terrorist leader, by the standard we established in the other thread last week you don't really have a basis to complain. Remember, if it's acceptable for terrorists to kill civilians, you agreed that it's acceptable for Israel to kill civilians. Otherwise, you'd be giving the Palestinians some kind of special treatment.

[Logic]

Originally posted by itai195:
I don't, personally. But as Israel claims their target in the building was a terrorist leader, by the standard we established in the other thread last week you don't really have a basis to complain. Remember, if it's acceptable for terrorists to kill civilians, you agreed that it's acceptable for Israel to kill civilians. Otherwise, you'd be giving the Palestinians some kind of special treatment.

Do you know the difference between state and an independent organisation?

And I think I've never said I support killing innocent civilians. I've said it's understandable and that it even makes sense in the terms of reducing the civilian casualities in the long run. But that is not the same as saying it is acceptable. Especially not from a nation that calls itself a Democracy.

[itai195]

Originally posted by Logic:
Do you know the difference between state and an independent organisation?

Independent in what way? Are you proposing we cut off Hamas' state funding?

And I think I've never said I support killing innocent civilians. I've said it's understandable and that it even makes sense in the terms of reducing the civilian casualities in the long run. But that is not the same as saying it is acceptable. Especially not from a nation that calls itself a Democracy.

Is it acceptable for one party, then, and not the other? I don't personally feel Israel should sink to this level, but if I were to believe that suicide bombers were justified in killing civilians then I'd have to think Israel's actions are also justified.

[macvillage.net]

Originally posted by dcolton:
The Palestinians should have been trying to capture the suspected terrorist. If they did their job, Israel wouldn't have to do it for them

Israel and the US forbid the Palestinian Security force from using any spy equipment, or weapons (they must use sticks).

How do you do the job?

Israel claims it can only do it by using anti-tank missles. Yet the Palestinians are supposed to do it without even having the right to guns?

And where does the intelegence come from? No spy equipment allowed. Israel is monitoring to ensure they obey that requirement (and barks loudly if they even attempt to aquire the equipment).

[PacHead]

Originally posted by macvillage.net:
Israel and the US forbid the Palestinian Security force from using any spy equipment, or weapons (they must use sticks).

How do you do the job?

Israel claims it can only do it by using anti-tank missles. Yet the Palestinians are supposed to do it without even having the right to guns?

And where does the intelegence come from? No spy equipment allowed. Israel is monitoring to ensure they obey that requirement (and barks loudly if they even attempt to aquire the equipment).

You mean like when the palestinians got 50,000 weapons for their police, and many of those police turned around and used to weapons in terrorist attacks ?

You see, the reason why they don't clamp down on the terrorists, is because they are terrorists themselves.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by Chinasaur:
What part of "Thou shalt not kill" don't you get.

You take the bible as a whole. God made provisions for war.

You know, when that was written, God helped armies defeat other armies right?

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
No, I don't believe they do. Sometimes civilians get caught in the crossfire between the terrorists and Israeli police, and that's bad, but Israel isn't targeting them.

This is the case.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
No, not all Palestinians are terrorists, just the ones who strap bombs on to themselves (or their children). Please direct me to where I said that. Also, I never claimed that all actions by the IOF are legitimate, though I do believe that the vast majority are.

It's also to be noted about 80% of the Palestinians support terrorism and terrorists.

[zen jihad]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
Looks as if Israel offered their apologies and condolences for the strike. Doesn't appear that they were aware that civilians were in harm's way.

However, as I've said before, when you "sleep with dogs you get fleas". If you know your neighbor is a wanted terrorist and you don't take action (or at least get away from them), you just may not wake up in the morning. I'm not saying that I fuly agree with that policy, but that reasoning isn't completely out of line.

Yeah, that logic works. When a Palestinian bomber goes on an Israeli bus after seeing that it contains Israeli soldiers (enemy combatants). The civilian casualties are just collateral damage then. I just wish the Palestinian bombes would aplogose for the killing of civilians when they go after soldiers.

Fair is fair, wouldn't you say?

[zen jihad]

Originally posted by itai195:
I don't, personally. But as Israel claims their target in the building was a terrorist leader, by the standard we established in the other thread last week you don't really have a basis to complain. Remember, if it's acceptable for terrorists to kill civilians, you agreed that it's acceptable for Israel to kill civilians. Otherwise, you'd be giving the Palestinians some kind of special treatment.

Cool, so when we see Palestinians kill a number of Israelis, in which one soldier was the target, I hope we don't hear any complaints from people.

[zen jihad]

Originally posted by itai195:

Is it acceptable for one party, then, and not the other?

Is it acceptable? Only when the media, and Governments says so, will I then think it's even stevens.

[Zimphire]

Originally posted by zen jihad:
Cool, so when we see Palestinians kill a number of Israelis, in which one soldier was the target, I hope we don't hear any complaints from people.

If their intentions are to kill him, and he did something bad to deserve it you wont.

Israel usually goes after people that HAS done bad things.

The soldier is just a symbol of what they think is bad. Innocent or not, he is guilty to them.

Same goes with the other "infidel" Israelis.

[itai195]

Originally posted by zen jihad:
Cool, so when we see Palestinians kill a number of Israelis, in which one soldier was the target, I hope we don't hear any complaints from people.

I suggest you see the previous thread. That's exactly the point -- several folks claimed that killing Israeli 'supporters' (not even soldiers) is justified, even though there is no way to distinguish them from other individuals. And the definition of 'supporter' was not provided, so the definition of terrorist wasn't either.

I disagree with that whole line of logic, but I wanted to make sure it was applied fairly by those who favored it.

[itai195]

Originally posted by zen jihad:
Is it acceptable? Only when the media, and Governments says so, will I then think it's even stevens.

It's not acceptable at all IMO! But if one thinks it's acceptable for the Palestinians to indiscriminately target Israeli 'supporters', why would it be unacceptable for the Israelis to indiscriminately target Palestinian terror 'supporters?'

[zen jihad]

Originally posted by Zimphire:

Israel usually goes after people that HAS done bad things.

The Palestinians are going after someone they think has been 'bad' to them. A soldier is a soldier in Israel, most do service in the OT, and most are seen as the oppressing frontage to Israeli policy. To Israel, the bombers are legimate targets (while civilians are killed and noted as collateral damage); to Palestnians, Israeli soldiers are legitimate targets (while civilians are killed too).

[zen jihad]

Originally posted by itai195:
I suggest you see the previous thread. That's exactly the point -- several folks claimed that killing Israeli 'supporters' (not even soldiers) is justified, even though there is no way to distinguish them from other individuals. And the definition of 'supporter' was not provided, so the definition of terrorist wasn't either.

I disagree with that whole line of logic, but I wanted to make sure it was applied fairly by those who favored it.

That's fine, so long as it's aplied by all who subscribe to it, ie. the media in particular, and the Rabbis.