A follow-up on Israel

On January 6, 2009, in General, by Neil Stevens

Jeff “Maximos” Martin replied to my criticism and while I could make a reply over there, I’m doing so here so all you guys will go visit the nice site that they all have there.

I’m accused of demanding what Jeff says is not necessary, but I don’t think so. I wasn’t demanding that he make the gestures against terrorism to prove his good faith. I assumed that. However the subject was the just war doctrine, and that requires us to examine carefully the events leading up to Israel’s use of force against Hamas. I still maintain that any examination of the subject that does not include that entire picture, is incomplete and will leave one prone to misleading conclusions.

Honestly: If I thought badly of Jeff for what he wrote, I would have e-mailed Paul with my concerns about his site. I wouldn’t have thrown up a front pager and made a serious reply, directing traffic in his direction.

As for the subject of the mainstream press, I only brought it up because Jeff in his original article used Israeli press accounts as the basis of his suggestion that Israel had not exhausted alternatives to war before beginning the counteroffensive. I quote: “Going solely by the level of ongoing controversy in the Israeli press, where policies towards the Palestinians are subjected to critiques more diverse and extensive than the run of things in America, I’d say not.”

I don’t trust the press anywhere in the western world when it comes to certain matters. Matters relating to Islam are most definitely included in that. Israel is no more immune than we are to the effects of self-flagellating cosmopolitans elevating every foreign subculture, no matter how perverse, over the western tradition.

Jeff goes on later to explain in that way only he can the same old ‘cycle of violence’ theory, which puts terrorist actions and Israeli responses on an equal footing. Each one is a response to the other, therefore nobody has the moral high ground. I disagree. When “Hamas did these [terrorist attacks in the name of exterminating Israel] because Islamic motifs became more prominent in the Palestinian resistance with every year of failure to attain more secular goals,” that was not a legitimate response to anything Israel did. You don’t just get to declare a genocidal war. That is the gravest of all threats, I still believe, and the fact that Israel did take steps which empowered Hamas shows a great deal of good faith on their part. But it appears this disagreement will not be resolved in a few Internet posts.

I’m not sure who I was psychoanalyzing though, nor do I recall when.

 

Israel and the Just War Doctrine

On January 5, 2009, in General, by Neil Stevens

I write today a response to Jeff Martin’s criticism of Israel with respect to the Catholic just war doctrine. I do think he’s in error, because he gives the facts a cursory glance and omits key details, but that only leads to my main criticism: I think he shows a bias against the Israeli side of the war.

Firstly though, I address the Catholic Church’s just war doctrine. Now let me start off by saying I have no ties with the Catholic Church, nor do I subscribe to its teachings, so for me this is purely an academic exercise. But to me it is clear that the “conditions for legitimate defense” are met by Israel in this case. Point by point:

  • “The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain.” It is.

    According to Wikipedia, hardly a source biased in favor of Israel, five rockets were fired at Israeli civilians in March 2007 and 103 more in May, marking the true beginning of the Nazi V2-style terror campaign against Israeli civilians. The rockets continued to fall since that point, through 2009. There was a lull though, when September saw 3 rockets, and October one rocket barrage only. However last month, in December 2008, the pace grew worse. In December there were (“at least” says Wikipedia) 50 rockets were fired before a six-month cease fire was even ended, and then after that period actually expired, and then after that at least 270 more rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza.

    When an enemy fires hundreds and hundreds of lethal rockets at you, that is a grave threat to the populace. Nobody doubts that the rockets were fired, as Hamas even claims responsibility for some of the attacks, so the threat is certain. Further, the attacks have come over a nearly two year period, with no signs of an end (as during the previous cease fire hundreds over 200 rockets were fired in total), so the threat is certainly lasting.

  • “All other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective.” They have.

    Sealing off Gaza from Israel did not protect Israeli citizens when rockets and mortars began. Giving Hamas its own territory to control, and allowing it to win an election, did not stop the attacks. Making a diplomatic agreement with Hamas, in the form of a cease fire, did not stop the attacks. No matter what Israel does, the attacks continue.

    This is not surprising, given that Hamas refuses to recognize that Israelis have a right to live in Israel. This is an irreconcilable difference that Hamas refuses to leave unresolved. They press the issue and Israel cannot stop that with words.

  • “There must be serious prospects of success.” I submit that the only way Israel could be stopped from winning this conflict, given their likely nuclear weapons capacity, is that the humanity and compassion of the IDF and Israeli leaders would prevent them from killing the terrorists at any civilian cost. This is, of course, a sharp contrast with the Hamas leadership, which shows no care when it kills Jewish civilians. Israel can win.

  • “The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.” I don’t think you can get much worse than a continuous rain of rockets on civilians without venturing into the realm of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons, which Israel shows no signs of using in this conflict.

    This isn’t like the hypothetical situation of the US and Canada shooting each other’s fishermen in response to a fishing resource dispute, or Japan nuking Moscow over the Kurile Islands/Northern Territories. No, Israel is responding with force to force already been used. This is no hypothetical threat or some non-military evil that is being responded to with military force.

The facts are not in dispute. The only problem is though, is that Maximos (as Jeff Martin long posted as at RedState) fails to analyze the entirety of the facts. No, he doesn’t even talk about the length and intensity of Hamas’s attacks on Israel, merely saying that he “could go either way” on whether the threat Hamas already has and continues to pose against Israel is enough to meet the standard.

This takes me to my second point: bias. I submit that Maximos comes to the conclusion he does, because he has a subtle bias against Israeli’s side of the war. He appears to have a blind spot to anything Hamas does. The clearest example of this is the fact that the article he wrote even exists. That is: he only bothers to write about this dispute when Israel does something he doesn’t like.

He completely ignores Hamas when they spend nearly two years attacking Israel. They never got called out for disobeying the Just War Doctrine. I just checked: of all the articles tagged Just War at What’s Wrong with the World, the only one that pops up is his criticism of Israel. A check of other tags on the post does find a criticism of Hamas and ‘Palestine’, but that comes from Paul Cella, not Jeff Martin.

Why does he never notice Hamas attacking Israel, but chimes in to criticize when Israel attacks Hamas? I don’t know. Maybe Maximos is influenced by a mainstream press corps that has the same bias. Given that his article uses mainstream press outlets to make his case, that seems likely.

It’s almost as though while I treat the just war doctrine as an academic exercise, he’s treating the attacks Israeli’s suffered as an academic exercise. He’s detached, and I believe he might be too detached to come to the correct conclusions. Any analysis of Israel’s actions, whether from a Catholic or any other perspective, must include a full view of the entire picture. Omitting the story of what Hamas has done, and has shown it will do, of course will show Israel in the wrong, but hidden biases and blind spots do tend to lead a person to the wrong conclusions.

 

Camino almost gets it

On January 4, 2009, in General, by Neil Stevens

Camino 2 is in beta, but its feature set isn’t quite there. It’s close, but it’s not enough to free me from Firefox.

Specifically, it has per-site cookies and per-site flash, but no per-site java and javascript. So close, yet so far. From a security perspective this is even backwards, I would argue. Javascript is so much more commonly used!

Oh, and userscripts can be gotten as well.

The race between Safari and Camino to get me away from Firefox continues…

 

What to do with a bad baseball team

On December 26, 2008, in General, by Neil Stevens

Your team is bad. You have two choices.

a) Own up for your errors and get better at picking players and staff.

b) Blame the Yankees.

The Brewers chose… poorly.

 

xkcd: Off the List

On December 26, 2008, in General, by Neil Stevens

If I wanted to read Palin bashing I’d go to the DNC. xkcd is off my reading list.

I’d have let it slide had the Obama one been insulting. That would nearly be even handed. Apparently we’re to think it’s embarassing to love Lincoln too much, but I don’t buy it.

 

Quick, add a minority!

On December 24, 2008, in General, by Neil Stevens

Racism strikes a DoD website as an individual ‘of color’ is crudely inserted into a photo of a meeting.

 

McDonalds and Card Check

On December 20, 2008, in General, by Neil Stevens

Since I found out that McDonalds is joining the fight against Card Check, I’ve eaten there five times. That’s five more times than I’d personally gone into a McDonalds in years!

I believe I’ve done my part to reward them.

 

PEAK OIL

On December 19, 2008, in General, by Neil Stevens
Peak Oil
 

So quiet?

On December 18, 2008, in General, by Neil Stevens

Well I had to go to DC for a meeting, which sucked up a week last month. Then I’ve spent a ton of time since working on version 4 of Red State’s site software. Throw in my own company work, and I haven’t spent much time on much else.

Played a bit of video games here and there: Some World of Goo, F-Zero GX (bought on a whim when shopping for Daniel), Nethack, Doom II, and Geometry Wars: Galaxies. All quickie stuff. No Metroid Prime 3 (which I’m starting to think just won’t ever hook me), no Etrian Odyssey, no Sim City DS, and ertainly no Makai Kingdom.

At least I finally found Freakazoid on DVD.

 

Upping the stakes

On December 18, 2008, in General, by Neil Stevens

Ghirardelli finally upped the stakes in the Dark Chocolate wars. Just a couple weeks ago I was disappointed at Target when I saw nothing beyond their 72% “Twilight Delight” squares, when other brands were going higher.

A while back I’d been given a gift of a pack of their dark chocolate, which had those 72%ers mixed with their 60% flavors. My coffee interest* naturally had me loving the 60% Espresso Escape, but I love the intensity of very dark chocolate.

Every time I’ve looked though, Ghirardelli only had stronger stuff in baking bars, a size far too large and inconvenient for my eating habits. But today at Target (coincidentally, not even the same Target. Last time was at the eastern edge of Moreno Valley, this time was at the eastern edge of Riverside), I saw something new: 86% Midnight Reverie. Great stuff.

Naturally I snapped off a little piece of one square, handed it to my brother, and said “Want some chocolate?” He proceeded to shove it into his mouth and chew it up, only to end up running to the kitchen, spitting it out, and guzzling some milk to soften the taste on his tongue. Heh.

* I avoid caffeine in general, though. I can abuse it so badly, so I rarely drink coffee. Allowed myself some for the RS 4 launch though, and that was a treat. Had four bottles of the new dark chocolate Starbucks Frappucinos. Great stuff.

 

Nima Jooyandeh facts.