A nation of prisoners

[Classical_Liberal]

t is also possible to discern a similarity with respect to the proportion of the population: According to the Addamir Prisoner Support Center, a Palestinian organization, since 1967 approximately 650,000 Palestinians have spent time in Israeli prisons, which amounts to about 40 percent of all Palestinian males (including children and the elderly). Above a certain age it is difficult to meet Palestinian males who have not done time in an Israeli prison. There are not many households in the territories in which handicrafts by prisoners are not displayed, as a souvenir of the days in prison, like photos from the days of military service for us.

Between March and October 2002, Israel arrested 15,000 Palestinians. Are all of them terrorists? Anyone who claims that all of the 650,000 Palestinians who have been arrested are criminals is claiming that the Palestinian people is a nation of criminals. Only a politician lacking all restraint, such as Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, can define all the 7,500 prisoners and detainees currently in prison as "terrorists." Even he knows that some of them are political prisoners.

Those who are spending time in prison without having been tried - the approximately 750 administrative detainees, those who have been convicted of belonging to organizations and those who are tried and sentenced by military courts - cannot be judged by criminal criteria. They should be considered, as the world considers them, political prisoners and even prisoners of conscience......

And they have good cause for concern. The gravest example concerns the children who are in prison. According to Addamir, 380 of the prisoners today are minors - 78 of them under the age of 16. Israel treats 16-year-olds as adult prisoners even though under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is a signatory, a person is considered a minor until the age of 18. In practice, even 14-year-olds are not separated - during questioning and detention - from the adults..........

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/467523.html

[Lithos]

1. As a side issue

Long term stay in prison usually creates a hardened criminal as a result of exposure to the less deisreable elements where there was a chance for rehabilitation.

So some of these minors who were likely acting out in minor civil disturbance have now been fully exposed to the hard core elements including those who do qualify as real terrorists in a way which makes them very likely to succumb to the terroristic philosophy when with real justice they wouldn't have.

Good move Israel! (NOT!)

L-

[Jim Sagle]

2. The real nation of prisoners here is Israel - not free to defend itself

as any other nation would, and under the insanely hostile scrutiny of an exterminationist set of immediate neighbors and a historically and decidedly unfriendly claque of European "intermediaries."

Black Africans die by the millions and no one is greatly exercised, but a Palestinian gets a hangnail and it's a global humanitarian and moral crisis.

Why is that?

[Classical_Liberal]

3. It is a crisis because we want to stop terrorism, which the Palestinian

exploitation causes. Israel is much more likely to commit ethnic cleansing on Arabs than Arabs are to do that to Israel. Israel has the nukes. Nobody said Israel doesn't have to the right to defend itself. Expecting Israel to treat prisoners in a human manner is saying no such thing.

[Gimel]

4. Capability

is not the same as likelihood. There is no will to commit "ethnic cleansing" Nukes wouldn't help in "ethnic cleansing". Nukes would annihilate Jew and Arab.

[Classical_Liberal]

5. The Palestinian Arabs are nowhere close.

and it is irrelevant because of this.

[Jim Sagle]

6. But the Iranians might be. Not so irrelevant after all.

[bemildred]

7. I think his point was that:

Since Israel has nukes, it has effective deterrence against
attempts to "push the Jews into the sea". Any such attempt
would a.) Open the perp up to being turned into green glass, and
b.) require a concentration of forces (to carry out the "push")
which could then promptly be whacked with a suitable suite of WMD.
It is essentially for this reason that all of the neighboring
states can be assumed to be resigned (whatever their rhetoric) to
the continued presence of the Jewish state, or at least to the
futility of any military solution to the "problem" of it's
existence. Attempts at direct removal will be too expensive to
the perps, OTOH they are free to be "enemies" and otherwise make
themselves annoying with a measure of impunity.

[Jim Sagle]

8. Israel has the nukes, and they are indeed good insurance - for now.

As more ME nations get nukes, this could change - decisively.

The Bush gang, while "supporting" Israel, has by its own hypocrisy and aggression, made such a scenario more likely.

[bemildred]

9. I disagree.

When Arab states get nukes it affects their relations in the same way as
having nukes affects Israel' s relations, it increases their deterrent capabilities.
The effect would be like the MAD situation between the USSR and USA, sort of
locks in the present situation until one side or the other changes internally. I
think it would tend to make the situation more stable by discouraging large
scale aggression. Nukes are not effective weapons of aggression against foes
similarly equipped, for the simple reason that it is a lose-lose, there is no way
to "win". It is no accident that Israel has not been invaded or attacked in any
direct way since it got nukes, and the effect would be similar for Iran say, less
paranoia about being attacked due to the possession of an effective and overwhelming
means of retaliation. I don't believe that Iran, despite the rhetoric, would risk a
fingernail for the Palestinians, even though it is more than happy to make itself
annoying when there is not risk involved.

[Jim Sagle]

10. With its small land mass, Israel will be vulnerable to a sneak attack.

And I think the religious crazies that could take over Iran (or even Iraq now that w has fucked it up) wouldn't hesitate.

[bemildred]

11. Well, I understand the argument, there is the matter of accidents, too.

But those issues hold with any state having nukes. We had a rather close
call with the Cuban Missile crisis.

I don't see any real possibility of preventing proliferation at this point, it would seem
sane to try to calm things down in international affairs precisely to prevent hotheads
from attaining such means while they are motivated to do something stupid.

I suppose growing up in the fifties and kissing my ass goodbye regularly in grammar
school, I became a bit blase about it.

[Djinn]

13. "there is no will to commit ethnic cleansing"

Really? that's odd...

* There's a poll in January 2003 that found 46 percent of Israelis supported transfer of Palestinians out of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, while 31 percent favored transferring Israeli Arabs out of the country.

* How about minister and cabinet member Efraim Eitam who beleives in "abrogating the political rights of the Palestinians and transferring them from their land and homes "only at a time of need,"

* Avigdor Lieberman - advocates tranfer (of people who's families have been in the area for generations - as opposed to himself who emigrated to Israel in 78)

* Binyamin Elon advocates transfer "We cannot live beside 1.5 Million refugees in this land…they are a timed bombs ticking…and hostile, one day it will explode in our faces” beleives "they cause death and must be expelled, we should convince them by money top leave, if they don’t we have to use force, refugees must be removed"

* Coaltion members Moledet and National Religious Party both advocate transfer


That's just a brief sampling of the widespread support for ethnic cleansing in Israel

[Gimel]

14. In response to attacks

...many options were being explored. The Peace Fence was the option that was decided upon. Military force was used in moderation, and only after continued attacks over several months killed hundreds of civilians.

Some extremists thought that removing the Arabs would be an option, but that was nixed at the bud.

Deportation is not being discussed now, nor was it being mentioned prior to the horrendous attacks on Israeli civilians.

[Djinn]

16. that's OK then

ethnic cleansing was just "an option we looked at" :eyes:

Also some of those "extremists" are members of the ruling coalition not exactly marginalised freaky fundies.

[number6]

12. The real nation of prisoners here is Israel

their building a wall around themselves
a prison of their own making ...
next a bubble over the top ...
" the peace bubble "

[Gimel]

15. Nothing changes

...the added security makes for a happy nation.