Talk:Israel-Palestine Conflict

I'd reccomend this

Elusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs - Its one of the better documentaries out there about this. Denis Cavanagh 16:32, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

Use of the Word "Terrorist"

This became something of an issue in my Lebanon article (see the talk page), so I'll state my argument clearly up front. The killing of innocent civilians, either by setting off bombs in cities, hijackings, or hostage-taking, is terrorism. Yes, that makes British mandate-era Jewish groups like Irgun terrorists, and it makes the PLO, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad all terrorist organizations, either in the past (PLO) or now (Hamas). Just wanted to make my position clear. (And, yes, I would argue that many of Israel's attacks in the Occupied Territories and Lebanon could be considered state terrorism, but that's not a can of worms I'd like to open in this article) Steven Clark Bennett 22:02, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

Umm, add the phrase "deliberate" to "killing of innocent civilians", and I think you're on safer ground. The Geneva Conventions actually say that it's OK to fire on a hospital or somesuch if it's being used for military purposes (e.g. to fire from). So if civilians were killed in such an attack, that would be within the GC (provided that reasonable care had been taken, to the degree reasonably feasible, to avoid them). How exactly to encompass that point in a pithy definition I don't have an immediate thought on; I was thinking "deliberate and avoidable", but no doubt people would just argue that it was necessary to target civilians. J. Noel Chiappa 23:55, 17 April 2008 (CDT)

Terrorist or Freedom Fighter? The Age old question...

The problem here is, where do you draw a line? Nelson Mandela and the ANC would have been considered a terrorist organization on the above definition, yet he is universally regarded as a freedom fighter today. I also dislike the fact that terrorism seems to only be relevant when it is individuals or non-state organisation. Mugabe and his 'war veterans' are terrorists as well. Its a tough issue, which I think the UN tried to discuss years ago but didn't really get anywhere. Denis Cavanagh 06:02, 18 April 2008 (CDT)

If the only difference between "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" is that the latter won, then if the ANC were freedom fighters, so were the Irgun (see above). I'd prefer something a little less malleable - hence my liking for something like the 'delibate and avoidable attack on civilians' standard, or something like that. But you're right, it is often very much in the eye of the beholder, and one person's "freedom fighter" is another one's "terrorist". Hence my original position, that I just prefer to just avoid using the term, since it is so problematic. J. Noel Chiappa 23:05, 18 April 2008 (CDT)

Pre-Partion Violence - Citation?

Hi Steven, I've added the citation needed template regarding the following passage:

They attacked the British as well as the Arab population, who they saw as enemies conspiring against the Jewish people. In 1946, Irgun bombed the southern wing of the King David Hotel, in Jerusalem, which the British had established as their headquaters. Ninety-one people were killed.

The situation in Palestine was rapidly escalating into a civil war, with Jews attacking Arabs, Arabs increasingly retaliating

Could you please note sources which describe a pre-partition pattern of Jews attacking and Arabs retaliating? (It is generally understood that if anything, the opposite was the case post-partition.) I can find no sources supporting this asseriton.

Even an extremely pro-Palestinian source, Ilan Pappe, seems to indicate this wasn't the case. He writes that "Palestine was a country torn by war, not so much between Jews and Arabs -- from 1939 after the Arab revold had subsided, until the UN decision on Palestine in November 1947, the level of violence between the two communitites remained low -- but between the Jews and the mandatory authorities" (The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 20-21). He later acknowledges that "The morning after the UN General Assembly ratified the partition resolution, Palestine was swept by an outbreak of violence which signalled the begninning of a civil war that was to last until 15 May, 1948. The first attacks were perptrated by Palestinians against Jews" (Ibid., 76). Gilead Ini 13:13, 8 August 2008 (CDT)