Actually, I mark people as foes as it helps me put their future comments in context. If someone is showing a particularly low level of reason, then I know to take their comments as such in the future.
In your case, you take apparent great offense at me disagreeing with you, but accuse me of being thin skinned. You claim that if I should expect a bit of criticism, but when your statements are challenged, send me to buy a newspaper. I conclude that no productive exchange of ideas is going to take place with you.
I wish I had a non-public way of marking this, but marking you as a foe does allow me to know never to try and engage with you in a discussion if I value my time. It's a very convenient way to have a persistent mark on a user. It does not mean you are an actual foe (much like Facebook friends are not actual friends). It is more an indication that I do not think much of your opinions and reasoning abilities.
Please send me examples to my private mail (I think this is off topic here).
Just because bad reporting is not limited to Slashdot (the linked English article is below bad) does not mean the subject here isn't worth discussing. I think the discussion totally misses the real subject matter. There are a host of important things to consider here, and I doubt any will be discussed in the comments, mostly because the subject matter says "Israel".
Does it make sense to try and block incitement to violence? Are there freedom of speech implications here? Would such a block, even assuming it would hold and be effective for Youtube and Facebook, even help?
What are Youtube and Facebook's moral and legal obligations here? Does the fact that both have development centers in Israel change anything?
Actually, not in the case of the videos in question here.
They depict "violence" against armed terrorist while actively trying to kill Israelis. They provide names of poor kids killed by the vicious Israelis, while innocently strolling along the streets of Israel, peacefully stabbing bystanders. They glorify the heaven rewards you will get if you do the same.
The article makes it sound like Israel is trying to silence the Palestinians from presenting their side. This is not the case (at least in this particular instance). We are talking about videos directed at Palestinians, using lies and distortions in order to incite impressionable Palestinians, often teenagers and children (some of the recent stabbing were done by 12 and 13 years olds) to go out and get themselves killed while trying to kill Jews.
This is not political. This is plain incitement to violence.
Entrapment is when you solicit someone to break the law, and then arrest them for it.
There was no solicitation here. There was a certain behavior that violated the "norm", and, arguably, socially accepted standards, but not the law and not the spirit of the law. Even if it was done on purpose, there is no justification for handcuffing someone, let alone a kid.
And we do allow the police to pose temptations in order to apprehend criminals. We send undercover police women dressed in min-skirts to catch rapists and people soliciting for sex for money. That is far more "entrapment" than what this kid did.
The bottom line is this. This kid did nothing wrong, and was harassed, handcuffed and arrested. This means the police, for sure, and the school, probably, fucked up. If he was an activist fighting for his right to bring weird shaped electronics to school, and not an innocent kid (which, again, I am yet to see evidence of), the police and school still fucked up.
While I agree 15M is overboard, I still wouldn't call what they're doing "terrorizing". Both the school and the police fucked up royally. There is no other way to look at it. Furthermore, they refused to acknowledge their fuckup. This is true even if he was coached to behave as he did (for which I'd love to see evidence). In the end, the way he behaved did not warrant the response he got.
The learning process starts where he did. Take something apart, try to put it together. Hailing him as a genius was being carried away, but labelling him a terrorist was even worse. This is how children learn. It's how we want children to learn.
Anyone who expects a child that has never learned proper electronics to build an electronic clock from scratch on first attempt is simply ignorant.
Actually, it just circles back to giving excuses to justify terrorism.
There are no reasons. Terrorism isn't an effective tool to achieve goals. No one converted their religion because of it (the general kind. I'm not talking about gun to head conversion).
Repeated terrorism does put economic pressure on countries suffering from it, but I am hard pressed to think of a single case where that produced any effect that was productive to terrorism.
Clearly aim directed terrorism might have some effect (Irish underground attacks on Britain comes to mind), but those are not the kind of terrorism we typically see today.
So asking "why" is claiming there is a rational reason. That is flawed to its core. Assuming this is an Islamic terrorist attack (we don't know yet, but it seems like a reasonable assumption), this is more likely a clash of cultures than an aim directed campaign.
This has the downside of being a preprocessing step (i.e. - you need local storage for the encrypted form of the files), but solves the encryption problem better than your suggestion (which encrypts the transit, but not the actual backup).
I'll leave the hospital incident out of it, because I know absolutely nothing about it.
2) If someone bombed a civilian/military airport in Israel with that very justification, would the United States describe that as a terrorist attack?
So far, nobody ever did. Not really.
In the mean while, Hamas is targeting completely civilian settlements (which are on land that was Israel's since before 1948, so not even that lame excuse exists), without the need to provide any excuse at all, of any kind. In fact, the only ones providing this lame excuse are people like you, who will search for any excuse whatsoever to justify acts of terror, or to try and make two completely distinct and obviously different situation seem the same due to some marginal, often made up, point of similarity.
International law is phrased around intent. Not body count (which is what everyone seem to point out repeatedly, and often mindlessly). Intent. If you don't like it, feel free to try and get it changed. You will find that anyone who actually understands war will tell you that the definition of war crime you idealize is something that no country in the world can afford to live up to.
You might say this sucks, and I'll wholeheartedly agree with you. You can claim this is horrible, and I'll point out that there is a reason we don't like war. If you try to claim that war should be conducted a different way, the burden of proof to show it is possible is on you.
I'll tell you what. When you actually know any facts regarding the subject matter of which you are talking, talk to me again. My email is in this (and any) comment's header.
So far, what I see is just phrasing your opinions as facts, with zero correlation to reality.
yet puts their own military headquarters smack in the middle of Tel Aviv.
And yet, you know exactly where it is. It is not used for civilian purposes.
I realize you are trying to make the two sound the same, but they really are nothing alike. Placing a distinctly military base in some proximity to civilians is not the same as using some poor shmoe's house as a weapon storage, and then instructing him and his family at gun point not to leave, even when the IDF is phoning in telling them they are about to bomb it.
You seem to ignore the fact that money not spent on policing can be used to save lives elsewhere. If the murder rate is low, spend less money on police, and more on medicine research, better education, greener energy etc. Those are also life saving expenses.
I'd ask you to tone down the ad hominem in order to further a constructive discussion, but I get the feeling you are not interested in a constructive discussion.
Can you explain what an operation designed to prevent a ship filled with refugees from leaving, but ended up killing them by mistake has to do with terrorism?
Are you serious? It's not supposed to instill terror in deportees or the British authorities that deportee ships were active bombing targets? LOL!
No. It was supposed to prevent the British from deporting Jews that Haganah wanted to stay in Palestine by disabling the ship's motor. It was miscalculated, however, and sunk the ship.
Now, you either disagree with that statement, or agree with it but still see it as an act of terror. If the former, please cite your sources. If the later, well, I'd have to agree with you that there is intellectual dishonesty in this thread and leave it at that.
Yes, you're clearly intellectual dishonest.
Ad hominem.
Just a few of Palmach's terrorist activities, the Night of Bridges, the Night of Trains, Numerous ambushes against British and Arab personnel, numerous bombings (especially radar installations,)
I see it as one army fighting another
Of course you do, that's how you lie to yourself that it wasn't terrorism.
Ad hominem again. Also, you did not point to any criteria by which you distinguish between what I said and what you said.
If that isn't terrorism, then there is no such things as terrorism.
Terrorism is targeting civilians. Terrorism is targeting individuals unrelated to your "cause", whatever it is. What's your definition?
Really, Arabs shooting at a bus with Jews on it. That's the foundations of modern terrorism - LOL. Not bombing hotels. If that's the case then "modern terrorism" was invented in the 18th century in America.
Targeting a civilian bus is terrorism. Targeting the British army headquarters, which, yes, resided in a Hotel, is a legitimate military act. I cannot be more clear on what marks one as terrorism and the other as not. You, however, seem to sling insults as a way to settle the discussion. Oh, and write "LOL".
If you're looking for a discussion on the points, please feel free to reply.
Can you cite any terror acts carried out by Haganah?
What a very carefully phrased question. Something the Iranian government would likely ask "Can you cite any terror acts that we have carried out?"
You mentioned Haganah specifically, citing its foundation of the IDF as the reason for continuity. So I asked about Haganah. For the record, I fully consider Palmach part of Haganah, and would love to hear terror acts done by it in this reference, too.
If you didn't want to be asked this specifically, you shouldn't have phrased your accusation in this way.
Fortunately, it's easy to point out where the Haganah actively and directly used terrorism to achieve its goals - try learning about the SS Patria.
Terrorism(n): the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal
Can you explain what an operation designed to prevent a ship filled with refugees from leaving, but ended up killing them by mistake has to do with terrorism?
Read up on their Palmach unit.
I know about Palmach. Again, I'd like you to be specific, because it seems our understanding of what constitute proof is vastly different.
Learn what happened after Ben Gurion's famous October 1st (1945) decision.
I see it as one army fighting another. I understand you don't. Personally, I think you'd be hard pressed to convince people that military actions, directed solely against military targets, and attempting to avoid hurting civilians where possible are "terrorism". If you do not agree with that, you will find that every single army in the world that has ever participated in any armed conflict is a terrorist. I doubt that's where you're heading.
By the way, were you aware that the Haganah explicitly approved the bombing of the Hotel David? Explicit as in "carry out the operation" explicit.
Are you aware that the hotel was the British army's headquarters (thus, a legitimate military target)? Are you aware that an advance warning was given (though not properly passed through and acted upon) in order to minimize casualties? Again, it's a hard press to call attacking a military target "terrorism".
The bombing of ships known to be carrying deportees, and the bombing of civilian facilities (e.g. King David Hotel) is the foundation of modern terrorism - ironically adopted by the very people the State of Israel displaced and marginalized.
Aside from the flaws I already mentioned in this argument, it is simply false. The foundations of modern terrorism is targeting civilians, striking targets based on affiliation rather than military relevance, indoctrinating populations that death is a high cause, and that achieving it for both yourself and your enemy is worth more than preserving and cultivating life.
You are correct that these foundations are found in actions carried out in Palestine as far back as the early 20th century. You are, however, missing the culprit. Firing at civilian buses merely because its occupants are Jews and accidentally killing an innocent, unrelated Arab with a bomb, and then declaring him Shahid are actions that Arab radicals in Palestine were doing well before the 1930's. These are the foundations of modern terrorism.
Also:
In other words, perhaps you should learn a little bit more about what happened before.
That's what my previous reply was meant to be. You were specifying actions I was not aware of, and I asked for citations. Turns out, I disagree with your analysis (or, possibly, you were more ignorant on those matters than you thought you were). There is no reason to sound smug about your answer. This is how discussion is supposed to go.
The real test is when Israel demands conscription from them. Only when Arab Israelis are trusted to guard their fellow Jews can Israel claim to be a democracy.
This I agree with, and there is already talk of changing this, but not clear if reforms will actually be implemented.
Any MKs who dares to suggest mandatory service of any kind (even merely community service in lieu of actual military service that Jewish citizens are required to do) is immediately labeled as a racist.
You make it sound like Israel is racist for not letting Israeli Arabs serve in the army. The truth of the matter is that this is a point of honor for Arab political leaders to head off any attempt of any mandatory service, of any kind whatsoever.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I mark people as foes as it helps me put their future comments in context. If someone is showing a particularly low level of reason, then I know to take their comments as such in the future.
In your case, you take apparent great offense at me disagreeing with you, but accuse me of being thin skinned. You claim that if I should expect a bit of criticism, but when your statements are challenged, send me to buy a newspaper. I conclude that no productive exchange of ideas is going to take place with you.
I wish I had a non-public way of marking this, but marking you as a foe does allow me to know never to try and engage with you in a discussion if I value my time. It's a very convenient way to have a persistent mark on a user. It does not mean you are an actual foe (much like Facebook friends are not actual friends). It is more an indication that I do not think much of your opinions and reasoning abilities.
Shachar
I apologise for mistaking you for someone interested in a civilized discussion. Will not happen again.
Shachar
You make a claim which I think is false or at least widely exaggerated. Don't you think you need to defend it?
Also, compare the terminology you use to the one I use to see whose being offensive.
Shachar
Please send me examples to my private mail (I think this is off topic here).
Just because bad reporting is not limited to Slashdot (the linked English article is below bad) does not mean the subject here isn't worth discussing. I think the discussion totally misses the real subject matter. There are a host of important things to consider here, and I doubt any will be discussed in the comments, mostly because the subject matter says "Israel".
Does it make sense to try and block incitement to violence? Are there freedom of speech implications here? Would such a block, even assuming it would hold and be effective for Youtube and Facebook, even help?
What are Youtube and Facebook's moral and legal obligations here? Does the fact that both have development centers in Israel change anything?
Shachar
Actually, not in the case of the videos in question here.
They depict "violence" against armed terrorist while actively trying to kill Israelis. They provide names of poor kids killed by the vicious Israelis, while innocently strolling along the streets of Israel, peacefully stabbing bystanders. They glorify the heaven rewards you will get if you do the same.
The article makes it sound like Israel is trying to silence the Palestinians from presenting their side. This is not the case (at least in this particular instance). We are talking about videos directed at Palestinians, using lies and distortions in order to incite impressionable Palestinians, often teenagers and children (some of the recent stabbing were done by 12 and 13 years olds) to go out and get themselves killed while trying to kill Jews.
This is not political. This is plain incitement to violence.
Shachar
They do.
Entrapment is when you solicit someone to break the law, and then arrest them for it.
There was no solicitation here. There was a certain behavior that violated the "norm", and, arguably, socially accepted standards, but not the law and not the spirit of the law. Even if it was done on purpose, there is no justification for handcuffing someone, let alone a kid.
And we do allow the police to pose temptations in order to apprehend criminals. We send undercover police women dressed in min-skirts to catch rapists and people soliciting for sex for money. That is far more "entrapment" than what this kid did.
The bottom line is this. This kid did nothing wrong, and was harassed, handcuffed and arrested. This means the police, for sure, and the school, probably, fucked up. If he was an activist fighting for his right to bring weird shaped electronics to school, and not an innocent kid (which, again, I am yet to see evidence of), the police and school still fucked up.
Shachar
While I agree 15M is overboard, I still wouldn't call what they're doing "terrorizing". Both the school and the police fucked up royally. There is no other way to look at it. Furthermore, they refused to acknowledge their fuckup. This is true even if he was coached to behave as he did (for which I'd love to see evidence). In the end, the way he behaved did not warrant the response he got.
Shachar
That's because people are ignorant.
The learning process starts where he did. Take something apart, try to put it together. Hailing him as a genius was being carried away, but labelling him a terrorist was even worse. This is how children learn. It's how we want children to learn.
Anyone who expects a child that has never learned proper electronics to build an electronic clock from scratch on first attempt is simply ignorant.
Shachar
One may as well transmit it in ancient Hebrew
Does that mean I finally get a Hebrew speech to text that sort of works? Cool!
The fact it's ancient Hebrew kinda sucks, but I think I'll take that over the crummy solutions we currently have.
Shachar
Actually, it just circles back to giving excuses to justify terrorism.
There are no reasons. Terrorism isn't an effective tool to achieve goals. No one converted their religion because of it (the general kind. I'm not talking about gun to head conversion).
Repeated terrorism does put economic pressure on countries suffering from it, but I am hard pressed to think of a single case where that produced any effect that was productive to terrorism.
Clearly aim directed terrorism might have some effect (Irish underground attacks on Britain comes to mind), but those are not the kind of terrorism we typically see today.
So asking "why" is claiming there is a rational reason. That is flawed to its core. Assuming this is an Islamic terrorist attack (we don't know yet, but it seems like a reasonable assumption), this is more likely a clash of cultures than an aim directed campaign.
Shachar
This has an additional problem, the Windows backups aren't encrypted. Not good if you have sensitive information.
<plug>Throw rsyncrypto into the mix</plug>
This has the downside of being a preprocessing step (i.e. - you need local storage for the encrypted form of the files), but solves the encryption problem better than your suggestion (which encrypts the transit, but not the actual backup).
Shachar
While undoubtedly true, I'd rather companies use such things for PR than what you usually find them doing.
I don't think he did this in order to get the good PR, but even if he did, he made the world a slightly better place. Good for him.
Shachar
I'll leave the hospital incident out of it, because I know absolutely nothing about it.
2) If someone bombed a civilian/military airport in Israel with that very justification, would the United States describe that as a terrorist attack?
So far, nobody ever did. Not really.
In the mean while, Hamas is targeting completely civilian settlements (which are on land that was Israel's since before 1948, so not even that lame excuse exists), without the need to provide any excuse at all, of any kind. In fact, the only ones providing this lame excuse are people like you, who will search for any excuse whatsoever to justify acts of terror, or to try and make two completely distinct and obviously different situation seem the same due to some marginal, often made up, point of similarity.
International law is phrased around intent. Not body count (which is what everyone seem to point out repeatedly, and often mindlessly). Intent. If you don't like it, feel free to try and get it changed. You will find that anyone who actually understands war will tell you that the definition of war crime you idealize is something that no country in the world can afford to live up to.
You might say this sucks, and I'll wholeheartedly agree with you. You can claim this is horrible, and I'll point out that there is a reason we don't like war. If you try to claim that war should be conducted a different way, the burden of proof to show it is possible is on you.
Shachar
I'll tell you what. When you actually know any facts regarding the subject matter of which you are talking, talk to me again. My email is in this (and any) comment's header.
So far, what I see is just phrasing your opinions as facts, with zero correlation to reality.
Shachar
And yet, you know exactly where it is. It is not used for civilian purposes.
I realize you are trying to make the two sound the same, but they really are nothing alike. Placing a distinctly military base in some proximity to civilians is not the same as using some poor shmoe's house as a weapon storage, and then instructing him and his family at gun point not to leave, even when the IDF is phoning in telling them they are about to bomb it.
Shachar
This is better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Shachar
Aireplane: "Mayday mayday mayday"
Computer: "You seem to be writing a letter!"
You seem to ignore the fact that money not spent on policing can be used to save lives elsewhere. If the murder rate is low, spend less money on police, and more on medicine research, better education, greener energy etc. Those are also life saving expenses.
Shachar
I'd ask you to tone down the ad hominem in order to further a constructive discussion, but I get the feeling you are not interested in a constructive discussion.
Can you explain what an operation designed to prevent a ship filled with refugees from leaving, but ended up killing them by mistake has to do with terrorism?
Are you serious? It's not supposed to instill terror in deportees or the British authorities that deportee ships were active bombing targets? LOL!
No. It was supposed to prevent the British from deporting Jews that Haganah wanted to stay in Palestine by disabling the ship's motor. It was miscalculated, however, and sunk the ship.
Now, you either disagree with that statement, or agree with it but still see it as an act of terror. If the former, please cite your sources. If the later, well, I'd have to agree with you that there is intellectual dishonesty in this thread and leave it at that.
Yes, you're clearly intellectual dishonest.
Ad hominem.
Just a few of Palmach's terrorist activities, the Night of Bridges, the Night of Trains, Numerous ambushes against British and Arab personnel, numerous bombings (especially radar installations,)
I see it as one army fighting another
Of course you do, that's how you lie to yourself that it wasn't terrorism.
Ad hominem again. Also, you did not point to any criteria by which you distinguish between what I said and what you said.
If that isn't terrorism, then there is no such things as terrorism.
Terrorism is targeting civilians. Terrorism is targeting individuals unrelated to your "cause", whatever it is. What's your definition?
Really, Arabs shooting at a bus with Jews on it. That's the foundations of modern terrorism - LOL. Not bombing hotels. If that's the case then "modern terrorism" was invented in the 18th century in America.
Targeting a civilian bus is terrorism. Targeting the British army headquarters, which, yes, resided in a Hotel, is a legitimate military act. I cannot be more clear on what marks one as terrorism and the other as not. You, however, seem to sling insults as a way to settle the discussion. Oh, and write "LOL".
If you're looking for a discussion on the points, please feel free to reply.
Shachar
Can you cite any terror acts carried out by Haganah?
What a very carefully phrased question. Something the Iranian government would likely ask "Can you cite any terror acts that we have carried out?"
You mentioned Haganah specifically, citing its foundation of the IDF as the reason for continuity. So I asked about Haganah. For the record, I fully consider Palmach part of Haganah, and would love to hear terror acts done by it in this reference, too.
If you didn't want to be asked this specifically, you shouldn't have phrased your accusation in this way.
Fortunately, it's easy to point out where the Haganah actively and directly used terrorism to achieve its goals - try learning about the SS Patria.
From Merriam Webster:
Terrorism(n): the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal
Can you explain what an operation designed to prevent a ship filled with refugees from leaving, but ended up killing them by mistake has to do with terrorism?
Read up on their Palmach unit.
I know about Palmach. Again, I'd like you to be specific, because it seems our understanding of what constitute proof is vastly different.
Learn what happened after Ben Gurion's famous October 1st (1945) decision.
I see it as one army fighting another. I understand you don't. Personally, I think you'd be hard pressed to convince people that military actions, directed solely against military targets, and attempting to avoid hurting civilians where possible are "terrorism". If you do not agree with that, you will find that every single army in the world that has ever participated in any armed conflict is a terrorist. I doubt that's where you're heading.
By the way, were you aware that the Haganah explicitly approved the bombing of the Hotel David? Explicit as in "carry out the operation" explicit.
Are you aware that the hotel was the British army's headquarters (thus, a legitimate military target)? Are you aware that an advance warning was given (though not properly passed through and acted upon) in order to minimize casualties? Again, it's a hard press to call attacking a military target "terrorism".
The bombing of ships known to be carrying deportees, and the bombing of civilian facilities (e.g. King David Hotel) is the foundation of modern terrorism - ironically adopted by the very people the State of Israel displaced and marginalized.
Aside from the flaws I already mentioned in this argument, it is simply false. The foundations of modern terrorism is targeting civilians, striking targets based on affiliation rather than military relevance, indoctrinating populations that death is a high cause, and that achieving it for both yourself and your enemy is worth more than preserving and cultivating life.
You are correct that these foundations are found in actions carried out in Palestine as far back as the early 20th century. You are, however, missing the culprit. Firing at civilian buses merely because its occupants are Jews and accidentally killing an innocent, unrelated Arab with a bomb, and then declaring him Shahid are actions that Arab radicals in Palestine were doing well before the 1930's. These are the foundations of modern terrorism.
Also:
In other words, perhaps you should learn a little bit more about what happened before.
That's what my previous reply was meant to be. You were specifying actions I was not aware of, and I asked for citations. Turns out, I disagree with your analysis (or, possibly, you were more ignorant on those matters than you thought you were). There is no reason to sound smug about your answer. This is how discussion is supposed to go.
Shachar
Israel have stated they won't be the first to introduce weapons to the middle east.
I'm assuming you meant nuclear weapons, rather than any weapons. The ship has definitely sailed on that.
Still not true, though. Israel has stated that they won't be the first to use non-conventional weapons.
Shachar
The agreement with Iran is new. This article simply rehashes old news with new circumstances to put forward a political view as "news".
Shachar
The real test is when Israel demands conscription from them. Only when Arab Israelis are trusted to guard their fellow Jews can Israel claim to be a democracy.
This I agree with, and there is already talk of changing this, but not clear if reforms will actually be implemented.
Any MKs who dares to suggest mandatory service of any kind (even merely community service in lieu of actual military service that Jewish citizens are required to do) is immediately labeled as a racist.
You make it sound like Israel is racist for not letting Israeli Arabs serve in the army. The truth of the matter is that this is a point of honor for Arab political leaders to head off any attempt of any mandatory service, of any kind whatsoever.
Shachar
I'm not anti-semetic by any stretch of the imagination
So far, all I see is ignorance.
try examining the roots of modern 'terrorism' followed by the role of the Haganah
Now, if you said Ezel or Lechi were terrorists, I'd at least see where you came from. Can you cite any terror acts carried out by Haganah?
Also, can you cite the connection you draw between those actions and modern terrorism?
Making assertions in a self-confident tone is easy. Do try to keep them accurate, however.
Shachar