In article <1rv4bc$dho@network.ucsd.edu> wbruvold@weber.ucsd.edu (William Bruvold) writes: >In article <1993May1.172343.6846@midway.uchicago.edu> thf2@midway.uchicago.edu writes: >> >>No, it's an example of "Things are nowhere near as bad as you characterize." >>The United States police kill as many blacks as Israel kills Palestinians, >>even though the US black population, while admittedly larger, isn't engaged in  >>a civil war to attempt to destroy the government........  > > >This probably should not be in this newgroup but Mr Frank is wrong >to use words like civil war or "destroy the government" in >discussing the conflict in the _OCCUPIED Territories_.    (Re: the newsgroup -- followups set to talk.politics.mideast where this belongs.)  This may make the term 'civil war' dubious, but it does nothing to the phrase 'destroy the government'. An occupying government is still a govern- ment, and the Palestinians have made it quite clear that their goal is not simply to prevent it from occupying the territories that don't con- fer citizenship (which is your own determination of the distinction) but to wipe it out entirely (and, not incidentally, the entire Jewish population it rules with it). This is an intent to 'destroy the government', no matter where the government happens to be from.  >If the >current government in Isreal would be willing to let all adult individuals >who are capable  to >vote in elections within the _DEFACTO_ boundaries of the Isreali >state, a requirement for being called a democracy in my opinion,  Wasn't a requirement for democracy in Athens. For that matter, isn't a requirement for the term democracy in the United States, which doesn't let non-citizens vote either. Both the United States and Israel have processes whereby it is possible to acquire citizenship, with a great deal of effort and a modicum of screening -- it's just that it isn't automatic for living in the territories. It isn't automatic for living in New York, either.  That said, suit yourself. Having never considered democracy the ultimate in Good In This World, I could care less if you feel like calling Israel, or America, or anywhere else, a democracy. Personally, I withhold the term from Israel for the same reason I withhold it from Britain... the parliamentary system is a serious handicap.  >then Mr. Frank would be correct.  As the current government neither >is willing to  >enfrachise the vast majority of individuals in the territories or to >allow these people to have the right to self determination it is not >a civil war or THEIR government, rather it is resitance to a FOREIGN >occupier.  Again, suit yourself. In which case Israel is *not* attacking its own people, it is fighting a war on foreign soil, in which case the residents are entitled to play rough, yes -- but Israel's allowed to get just as rough, within the bare limits of the rules of war. This includes, among other things, the right to shoot or bomb *anyone* a national of the coun- try in question who is fighting them (which permits mass frontal assault on all rock-throwers), along with the right to take out any installation of military importance (certain villages with too-good fortifications can be handled by aerial bombing, as can waterways since they count as supply lines to the enemy), and the right to do anything whatsoever to whatever constitutes a government that they can lay hands on (if Hamas is trying to set up as the ruling party, let them beware).   If this is not the scenario you want, I recommend you go back to calling it a civil war. Civil wars have to be handled nicer. You cannot say the Palestinians are a nation fighting a resistance war against a foreign nation and still call Israel a government who is treating its own people cruelly. If the Palestinians are fighting a war against a foreign country, so is Israel, and the gloves come *off*.  	-Naomi