From: perlman@qso.Colorado.EDU (perlman eric)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.mideast
Subject: Re: Death Squads in Occupied Territories
Date: 9 Apr 92 23:29:55 GMT
Article-I.D.: colorado.1992Apr9.232955.17852
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder

In article <1992Apr9.184528.25183@casbah.acns.nwu.edu> bjag@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Bharathi Jagadeesh) writes:
>Danny Keren
>>I don't know the current number, but in March the NY Times gave the number
>>of Palestinians killed by Palestinians as 54. It is three time more
>>than the number of people killed by the IDF in riots
>
>Uri Zakai
>>it is a much larger number then the one of palestinians killed by israelis
>,
>>and if we   add the fact that those who are killed by other palestinians
>>are usually weaponless , and are hacked up with axes etc - usually in
>>broad day light , you have to wonder how come nobody protest against it.
>
>Since Israel is the governmental authority in the West Bank and Gaza, it is
>the Israeli responsibility to prevent the killing of all residents of the
>area, whoever the murderers are. It's a shame that Israel's doing its job
>so badly.

Quite true, as far as it goes.  Where we differ is the next paragraph.

>However, the extra-judicial killing of Palestinians, is not in any way
>comparable to the actions of the Israeli military forces. If the killers of
>the Palestinians were caught, I presume that Israel would actively
>prosecute them (I hope so, anyway; Israel's abdication of its
>responsibility to the Palestinianians presumably hasn't gone so far that
>they would overlook murder). The Israeli killers (soldiers) of the
>Palestinians do so with the full support and authority of the Israeli
>government. They are not prosecuted for their actions. This makes the two
>situations wholy different.

This is not true.  That no killing is prosecuted, or even only the
exception prosecuted, is pretty far from the truth.  Every one is
investigated.  On some, further prosecution is needed, on others not.
But the above paragraph seems to suggest a built-in and deliberate bias,
which I do not accept.

>Hundreds of people kill each other in the inner city of Chicago every year.
>It's horrible that happens, but it doesn't make the wrongful death of any
>person at the hands of a Chicago policman any less horrendous. The
>responsibility for the policmen's actions lies at Chicago's feet in a way
>that the deaths in the inner city don't. Am I to blame because my city
>neighbors kill each other? No. Am I to blame because the government I help
>to elect kills people (though rarely)? Yes.

ok, fine.

>In the same way, Palestinians cannot be held responsible because some
>Palestinians chose to murder each other. Israelis, on the other hand, are
>responsible for the actions of the government they elect. 

Not fine.  You're really comparing apples and oranges here.  While
clearly the individual Palestinian on the street is not to blame, those
who have incited the violence of the Intifada on the Palestinian side
also tend to be the same groups who murder other Palestinians, and
therefore those Palestinians *can* and *should* be held responsible for
those acts.


-- 
"How sad to see/A model of decorum and tranquillity/become like any other sport
A battleground for rival ideologies to slug it out with glee." -Tim Rice,"Chess"
     Eric S. Perlman  <perlman@qso.colorado.edu> or <eric@lyra.Colorado.EDU> 
  Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, University of Colorado, Boulder