[Assam] force is effective only as a preventative

Wed Jun 2 13:20:15 PDT 2010

****No idea has ever been defeated by force — not by siege, not by
bombardment, not by being flattened with tank treads and not by marine
commandos. To defeat an idea, you have to offer a better idea, a more
attractive and acceptable one.**** from the column

This is really laudable. Who could disagree with such a statement? But the
author forgets to point out something very important. Israel, in general, is
NOT fighting 'an idea' with force. It is fighting the violence from
Hamas/Palestinians with force.

If it were JUST ideas from the Palestinians and NO Violence, then I have no
quarrel with this statement.

Just because Israel is stronger, or is a State, does not and should not
automatically mean that it is the big bad ogre here, and that too all the
time.

This is the same damn drama played out by all terror outfits (including
those in Assam) and their supporters - that they very often and very
conveniently forget these terror outfits whether demanding a separate
homeland or some other pipe dream, they just don't float IDEAS, but also
perpetrate violence.

When these terror outfits get hit hard, they yell 'human rights' and seek
the help of supporters and HR groups and pretend they are/were the real
victims here.

>No body in this US lead world talk about the most religious ( not
linguistic) fanaticism of  so called Jews nation-state.

What kind of statement is this Sushanta? Do you seriously believe that the
US somehow had a hand in this or what Israel does? Almost every country in
the world has a strong, paid lobby in Washington DC - and that includes
China, Taiwan, Russia, Pakistan, India, Israel, Arabs (Egypt, Jordan, even
PLO etc etc), Vietnam and even countries like Iran (a sworn enemy of the
US).

Why? All these countries love the big $$$$ & power the US doles out, and
many of these countries also to love to hate it (at least, in front of the
home crowd).

_______

On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 2:22 PM, Sushanta Kar <pragyan.tsc50 at gmail.com>wrote:

> What a shame!  what Nazis did with Jews, Jews are doing same with
> Palestinians. They are showing the real ugly face of present day capitalist
> led nationalism.  No body in this US lead world talk about the most
> religious ( not linguistic) fanaticism of  so called Jews nation-state.
> Hitlar would have envied by seeing longevity of  this modern day  most
> fasist state.
> The write up is good one, proposal are noble, if not the best.
>
> Sushanta
>
> On 2 June 2010 19:47, uttam borthakur <uttamborthakur at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
>
> >
> > True Dilip Da. Even the State has to exert force to save and prevent. The
> > controveries involve the delineation of the limits. The sentiment
> expressed
> > in the write-up is laudable; the flip-side being Israel is (and has to
> > be) the hand-maiden of the US interests in that region; it cannot forsake
> > low intensity conflicts even if it wants to, because, the US has to
> ensure
> > that the custodians of 'its' low-cost fossil fuel supply are kept in line
> > when they are all busy fighting a perennial war. What democracy denies
> the
> > US; it gets it done through the state of Israel. The US state-structure
> may
> > dislike Noam Chomsky, yet he works in the MIT. But, Israel has denied
> entry
> > to this born Jew to the West Bank even to deliver a lecture! And the US
> > spokes-person today reposed complete confidence about Israel's ability to
> > conduct an impartial inquiry into the recent incident of shelling
> > the flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza; and Israel's outrageous
> >  statement that the ships were not carrying humanitarian aid, but
> dangerous
> > knives, clubs and crowbars to attack the state of Israel. How puerile; it
> > too should have limits.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I liked the thought process in the article below. It'd apply anywhere in
> > the world.
> > ============================================================
> > >From the NYT
> > Op-Ed Contributor
> > Israeli Force, Adrift on the Sea
> > By AMOS OZ
> > Published: June 1, 2010
> >
> > ARAD, Israel
> >
> > FOR 2,000 years, the Jews knew the force of force only in the form of
> > lashes to our own backs. For several decades now, we have been able to
> wield
> > force ourselves — and this power has, again and again, intoxicated us.
> > In the period before Israel was founded, a large portion of the Jewish
> > population in Palestine, especially members of the extremely nationalist
> > Irgun group, thought that military force could be used to achieve any
> goal,
> > to drive the British out of the country, and to repel the Arabs who
> opposed
> > the creation of our state.
> > Luckily, during Israel’s early years, prime ministers like David
> Ben-Gurion
> > and Levi Eshkol knew very well that force has its limits and were careful
> to
> > use it only as a last resort. But ever since the Six-Day War in 1967,
> Israel
> > has been fixated on military force. To a man with a big hammer, says the
> > proverb, every problem looks like a nail.
> > Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip and Monday’s violent interception of
> > civilian vessels carrying humanitarian aid there are the rank products of
> > this mantra that what can’t be done by force can be done with even
> greater
> > force. This view originates in the mistaken assumption that Hamas’s
> control
> > of Gaza can be ended by force of arms or, in more general terms, that the
> > Palestinian problem can be crushed instead of solved.
> > But Hamas is not just a terrorist organization. Hamas is an idea, a
> > desperate and fanatical idea that grew out of the desolation and
> frustration
> > of many Palestinians. No idea has ever been defeated by force — not by
> > siege, not by bombardment, not by being flattened with tank treads and
> not
> > by marine commandos. To defeat an idea, you have to offer a better idea,
> a
> > more attractive and acceptable one.
> > Thus, the only way for Israel to edge out Hamas would be to quickly reach
> > an agreement with the Palestinians on the establishment of an independent
> > state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as defined by the 1967 borders,
> with
> > its capital in East Jerusalem. Israel has to sign a peace agreement with
> > President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah government in the West Bank — and
> by
> > doing so, reduce the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a conflict between
> > Israel and the Gaza Strip. That latter conflict, in turn, can be resolved
> > only by negotiating with Hamas or, more reasonably, by the integration of
> > Fatah with Hamas.
> > Even if Israel seizes 100 more ships on their way to Gaza, even if Israel
> > sends in troops to occupy the Gaza Strip 100 more times, no matter how
> often
> > Israel deploys its military, police and covert power, force cannot solve
> the
> > problem that we are not alone in this land, and the Palestinians are not
> > alone in this land. We are not alone in Jerusalem and the Palestinians
> are
> > not alone in Jerusalem. Until Israelis and Palestinians recognize the
> > logical consequences of this simple fact, we will all live in a permanent
> > state of siege — Gaza under an Israeli siege, Israel under an
> international
> > and Arab siege.
> > I do not discount the importance of force. Woe to the country that
> > discounts the efficacy of force. Without it Israel would not be able to
> > survive a single day. But we cannot allow ourselves to forget for even a
> > moment that force is effective only as a preventative — to prevent the
> > destruction and conquest of Israel, to protect our lives and freedom.
> Every
> > attempt to use force not as a preventive measure, not in self-defense,
> but
> > instead as a means of smashing problems and squashing ideas, will lead to
> > more disasters, just like the one we brought on ourselves in
> international
> > waters, opposite Gaza’s shores.
> >
> >
> >
> > Amos Oz is the author, most recently, of the novel “Rhyming Life and
> > Death.”
> >
> >
> >
> > Uttam Kumar Borthakur
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > assam mailing list
> > assam at assamnet.org
> > http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Sushnta Kar
> সুশান্ত কর
> তিনসুকিয়া, আসাম
>
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> http://ishankonerkotha.blogspot.com
> আমার সম্পাদিত 'প্রজ্ঞান'
> http://pragyan06now.blogspot.com
> http://sites.google.com/site/pragyan06now
>
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