Israeli court: Israeli army not at fault for murdering Rachel Corrie

[danny]

The courts decided that the driver couldn't see Rachel Corrie, and certainly if that is true (and I have no reason to believe otherwise) than you can't convict someone of murdering someone whom you don't know exist.

[danny]

The courts decided that the driver couldn't see Rachel Corrie, and certainly if that is true (and I have no reason to believe otherwise) than you can't convict someone of murdering someone whom you don't know exist.

Murder, no.  Manslaughter yes if you act in a manner that prevents you from being reasonably certain that what you are doing puts others in danger.

It's a grey zone, but since the bulldozer operator was unable to see what he was plowing up then yes what he did constitutes manslaughter.

If someone jumps in front of my car while I'm driving and I hit him, that's not manslaughter, it's his fault.

[danny]

I realize you support Israel's efforts to slowly grab more land from the Palestinians in the mistaken belief that increases your country's security.  It might do so in the short term, but in the long term it won't.  Israel's continued existence depends upon the Arabs remaining disunited.  Once the ultra-Zionists achieve their goal of removing the Palestinians from Judea and Samaria, one more roadblock to Arab unity will be gone.

What roadblock is this? Is there some sort of difference of opinion in the Arab world which would somehow be go away?

Arabs are not united because they hate one another, but that has nothing to do with Israel.

[danny]

Pan-Arabism is dead, and has been for a while now.

[danny]

Talking so far into the future seems silly to me, and no one really knows what is going to happen, and anyone making predictions is probably going to be very wrong. As far as we know countries in 100 years will envelop themselves in force fields that make nuclear attacks obsolete.

[danny]

If the Arabs think Israel is weak, a piece of paper isn't going to stop them from attacking anyway.

[danny]

If the Arabs think Israel is weak, a piece of paper isn't going to stop them from attacking anyway.

Who said anything about a piece of paper?  Maybe things would be different if Israel had acted differently after the 1967 war and never tried a long-term occupation, but now...  Now it's only a matter of time.

Then what would you have proposed to stop the Arabs from wanting to get rid of Israel?
Because it was just as much their intention before 1967 as after.

[danny]

Perhaps not try to take over Arab land to reform a defunct nation in the first place?

Still, there was at least a chance that the Arabs could have eventually come to accept the Israeli enclave existing in Palestine before the occupation began.  1967 Israel in a no win situation. Going back to the 1967 borders immediately wasn't a realistic option.  Nor could they do as they had done after the 1948-9 war and give the Arabs that remained political rights, not and keep Israel a Jewish state.  (Tho if they had, I think the Jews would still have been a majority, just not an overwhelming one.)

Still, despite their unpalatablity politically, the two options that might have had a chance of success would have been to plan on a return to 1967 borders (probably with some border changes, especially in the area of Jerusalem which I find it unlikely Israel would ever willingly give up) even without a final peace deal or to go for a one-state solution of a State of Israel-Palestine (probably sans Gaza to improve the demographics as far as the Jews are concerned).  I can't say either would be a guaranteed long term success and they both would have been riskier in the short term. However, the settlements and the occupation put Israel on a path that ensures it will continue to exist only so long as it has military superiority, but not much past that.

So basically Israel has the option of giving back a big chunk of land and pray that that would appease the Arabs so that they might not want to get rid of Israel, even though all evidence so far would show that the opposite is true.

Another option is to simply cease to exist.

Faced with these options, I am glad that Israel chose a third option over those, if this means that there will be more wars in the future, then so be it.