Replies to post #8372 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[Math Junkie]

"So what you are really saying is that Palestinians have the right of self defense but they should get into the fetal position and be exterminated? Is that what you are saying?"

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that if they want to make war on Israel (which they are in fact doing), then they have the same responsibility as any other combatants to go after military targets and not nightclubs, school buses, etc. If the Palestinians are in fact being exterminated, then blowing up Israeli civilians at random is not going to save them. If anything, it increases public support for harsher measures on the part of Israel's military.

"To me, what the Israelis are doing now is no different than the Palestinian suicide bombers were doing. After all, I have been posting for almost a month now nothing but scores of innocent Palestinians dead and all because they blew up a tank and killed 4 IDF soldiers who were in their land, destroying their homes and killing their people."

Any persons who participate in blowing up a tank are not innocent civilians anymore, they have made themselves into combatants. If the Israeli military's response to the blowing up of a tank is to kill noncombatants, then that is wrong. However any civilians who played a part in attacking the tank, or in other attacks on the Israelis, are legitimate military targets, regardless of whether they wear a uniform.

"So what would you suggest they do? Get into the fetal position? I'm really interested to hear if you where in their shoes and with their non-existent military, being killed like fish in a barrel, what would you do when the occupying force was killing your people and taking your land, and every time you tried to defend yourself by taking out a tank, your people and family were slaughtered?"

The Palestinians and the Israelis are at war. Nobody seems to want to admit it, but that's what it really is, IMO. I believe the Palestinians have no realistic hope of victory in this war. Given that, I think the Palestinians should surrender. I think the Palestinians should cease all acts of violence, and if they did that, I think the Israelis would do the same. If the Israelis did not do so, I think they would lose the support of the American people in short order, and they know that.

But if the Palestinians want to continue fighting this futile war, it is their right to do so.