torment
Let's imaging there are a bunch of people who would like to kill us. Occasionally they succeed on a small scale, but we hold total military command of the situation. However, their successes represent a failure of our responsibility to our own citizens.
Let's consider some action choices:
1. Kill them all.
2. Establish a siege which threatens to starve them if they don't calm down.
3. Establish a siege. Give them plenty of food and water, so that they can feel the pain. Torment them as a punishment for their attempts to kill us.
4. Kill enough of them that they come to understand that if they persist in trying to kill us, they'll all end up dead.
Why anyone would imagine (3) as a sensible choice eludes me.
If you really, really want to make someone hate you, what might you do?
How about, put him in a cage, keep him alive, and poke him with a stick every time he spits at you, which he does every day, for year after year after year.
Let's consider some action choices:
1. Kill them all.
2. Establish a siege which threatens to starve them if they don't calm down.
3. Establish a siege. Give them plenty of food and water, so that they can feel the pain. Torment them as a punishment for their attempts to kill us.
4. Kill enough of them that they come to understand that if they persist in trying to kill us, they'll all end up dead.
Why anyone would imagine (3) as a sensible choice eludes me.
If you really, really want to make someone hate you, what might you do?
How about, put him in a cage, keep him alive, and poke him with a stick every time he spits at you, which he does every day, for year after year after year.
posted by dwshelf at 11:33 AM
2 Comments:
Uri Avnery
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15306.htm
explores these questions with somewhat greater factual fidelity..,
IS IT possible to force a whole people to submit to foreign occupation by starving it?
That is, certainly, an interesting question. So interesting, indeed, that the governments of Israel and the United States, in close cooperation with Europe, are now engaged in a rigorous scientific experiment in order to obtain a definitive answer.
The laboratory for the experiment is the Gaza Strip, and the guinea pigs are the million and a quarter Palestinians living there.
IN ORDER to meet the required scientific standards, it was necessary first of all to prepare the laboratory.
That was done in the following way: First, Ariel Sharon uprooted the Israeli settlements that were stuck there.
After all, you can't conduct a proper experiment with pets roaming around the laboratory. It was done with "determination and sensitivity", tears flowed like water, the soldiers kissed and embraced the evicted settlers, and again it was shown that the Israeli army is the most-most in the world.
With the laboratory cleaned, the next phase could begin: all entrances and exits were hermetically sealed, in order to eliminate disturbing influences from the world outside.
That was done without difficulty. Successive Israeli governments have prevented the building of a harbor in Gaza, and the Israeli navy sees to it that no ship approaches the shore. The splendid international airport, built during the Oslo days, was bombed and shut down. The entire Strip was closed off by a highly effective fence, and only a few crossings remained, all but one controlled by the Israeli army.
There remained a sole connection with the outside world:
the Rafah border crossing to Egypt. It could not just be sealed off, because that would have exposed the Egyptian regime as a collaborator with Israel. A sophisticated solution was found: to all appearances the Israeli army left the crossing and turned it over to an international supervision team. Its members are nice guys, full of good intentions, but in practice they are totally dependent on the Israeli army, which oversees the crossing from a nearby control room. The international supervisors live in an Israeli kibbutz and can reach the crossing only with Israeli consent.
So everything was ready for the experiment.
IS IT possible to force a whole people to submit to foreign occupation by starving it?
Let's leave aside that "foreign occupation" phrase. Let's imagine that Israel just wants to be left alone, free from rocket and bombing attacks, and to have its kidnapped soldiers returned. Isreal left Gaza in totality. No occupation at all, and the rocket attacks started with intensity.
Starving via seige to achieve military goals is an experiment which has been tried innumerable times in human history, and the results are pretty clear. It works.
If Israel were to have the will to starve Gaza, you can bet that the Gazans would cease hostilities before very many had starved.
But Isreal lacks such will.
It seems that one who believes otherwise would point to at least one starved Gazan...but there have been none.
Post a Comment
<< Home