Book Review of Tareq Baconi's The Rise of Palestinian Resistance

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Book Review of Tareq Baconi's The Rise of Palestinian Resistance

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JW:

Book Review of Tareq Baconi's Hamas Contained The Rise of Palestinian Resistance

Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance

Preface Page 1:
Sitting in the darkness of the theater, I thought of Palestine. Lacking the clarity of historical hindsight, the Palestinian struggle for self-determination seems frozen in time, in many ways an interminable anticolonial struggle unfolding in a postcolonial world. It is a world that has confronted the carnage of decolonization. But the battle is still raging in Palestine, with ever-present urgency. The simplistic binaries that frame conversations of Palestinian armed struggle evoke the condescension expressed by colonial overlords
You typically see this claim by Palestinians and their supporters, that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a "Colonial" issue with the Palestinians the supposed natives and the Israelis/Jews as the colonizers. This claim though has the following problems:
  • 1) There was a time when Israel was an undisputed Jewish country.

    2) There was no homeland of Jews that sent its citizens to Israel in order to conquer and control it for the benefit of the homeland. This would be the normal/only definition of "colonize".

    3) There was a country, England, that did colonize Israel. England left the country to Jews and Palestinians to fight over.

    4) England was more helpful to Arabs than Jews during The War of Independence.
Baconi (yes, "Baconi") is primarily dealing with Hamas and it's clear that Hamas' primary argument is religion oriented and not legal oriented anyway. Anyway, for Baconi to summarize the conflict as Colonial based is false, if not dishonest. Obviously he is sympathetic to the Palestinians which is understandable, hell, even I'm sympathetic to them, but you do not help them by repeating their falsehoods/lies. At the time of the War, relatively speaking, there were many more native Arabs in Israel than Jews, so it does seem quite unfair that seventy years later Arabs do not control any part of Israel. Why not just say that?


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Re: Book Review of Tareq Baconi's The Rise of Palestinian Resistance

Post by jferris »

JoeWallack wrote: Fri Jun 29, 2018 12:59 pm
1) There was a time when Israel was an undisputed Jewish country.
When was that?
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Allah Assigned Israel to the Jews

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jferris wrote: Fri Jun 29, 2018 2:40 pm
JoeWallack wrote: Fri Jun 29, 2018 12:59 pm
1) There was a time when Israel was an undisputed Jewish country.
When was that?
JW:
Before there were Muslims. My source is the Koran.


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Re: Book Review of Tareq Baconi's The Rise of Palestinian Resistance

Post by jferris »

JoeWallack wrote: Sat Jun 30, 2018 9:20 am
Before there were Muslims. My source is the Koran.
Could you give a range of dates when Israel was an undisputed Jewish country?

Thanks.
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The Hamasgous Rules The Wasteland

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JW:
Preface
During the summer of 2014, when global newsrooms were covering Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip, I watched Palestinian analysts being rudely silenced on the air for failing to condemn Hamas as a terrorist organization outright.1
JW:
Baconi's one reference is to Sean Hannity who asks a Hamas supporter if they think Hamas is a terrorist organization repeatedly. The supporter refused to answer the question and Hannity ended the interview. Baconi postures that this is representative of The Media. This was my biggest laugh of the day (even after watching Colbert and Noah) and makes me not want to read the rest of his book. Unfortunately it is representative common for Hamas supporters/critics of Israel to have a likewise one sided viewpoint. Here, only looking at why Hamas uses terrorism, when what should be looked at is the relationship between Terrorism and Security Measures.

Palestinian terrorism is the only reason they still do not have their own country and by supporting or at least tolerating Palestinian terrorism you are hurting them rather than helping them. Clearly the trend is that Palestinians are getting worse at terrorism, exponentially more likely to hurt themselves than Israelis/Jews, and Israel is getting better at Security Measures. It may be time for Palestinians to at least try a new strategy, like maybe the opposite of terrorism.


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Re: Allah Assigned Israel to the Jews

Post by jferris »

JoeWallack wrote: Sat Jun 30, 2018 9:20 am
1) There was a time when Israel was an undisputed Jewish country.
Could you give a range of dates when Israel was an undisputed Jewish country?

Thanks.
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Hamas Holyween

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vtsKGzGVK4

JW:
Preface:
Against the backdrop of flares and explosions lighting up Gaza’s night skies during Israeli military incursions, some Israelis trek up to raised viewing points, sit on couches, and eat popcorn while watching the “fireworks” over the beleaguered land.3
Enjoying harm inflicted on the other side is largely a Palestinian thing with Terrorists rewarded for their Terrorism and Terrorists celebrating by dancing and passing out candy (like Allah Ackbars) like it was Halloween. This type of attributing the sins of your side to the other side does not bode well for the rest of the book. While Baconi is using "understand" as a euphemism for "don't criticize" Hamas thousands of Palestinians will be murdered by Palestinian leaders in failed Terrorist attempts and hundreds of innocent Israelis will be injured. Palestinian supporters have every right to criticize Israel but if they refuse to also criticize Palestinians they are just contributing to the problem, not helping to solve it.


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Overshocked.Com

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JW:
Preface:
The collective punishment of millions has become permissible, comprehensible, and legitimate. Destroying schools and targeting UN shelters, as Israel did in 2014, are military tactics that have been justified as essential for Israel to defend itself against terror. The killing of more than five hundred children during that same operation for many becomes little more than an unfortunate necessity.
As usual/always Baconi's argument is backwards. During Operation Protective Edge Israeli attacks on specific schools and shelters were never general "collective punishment" attacks. They were always specific responses to specific locations of Gaza attacks. It was Hamas' terrorist attacks on random Israelis that was collective punishment.

The number of Gazan children killed is also unknown as Hamas is an unreliable source and is thought to include fatalities caused directly by Hamas such as accidents and murders of actual/suspected/imagined collaborators as well as natural deaths.

A better description would be Hamas' collective punishment of Gazans as they encouraged/forced Gazan civilians into locations, such as schools and UN shelters, that were used to launch attacks/store weapons, making them vulnerable to Security Measures, and similarly launching attacks from high density locations such as apartment buildings.


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Watch The Part After "But"

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JW:
Preface:
Hamas’s actions fit into the definition of terrorism used by the U.S. Department of State, which notes that “terrorism is premeditated politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.”4 While Hamas itself admits that it has used such tactics, it vehemently rejects being designated a terrorist organization. The logic underpinning this seeming contradiction is the absence of a single definition about what constitutes terrorism.5 The term is malleable and subjective, and more importantly, it has been used as a tool of war.6 The definition put forward by the U.S. State Department has consistently and cynically been manipulated to justify illegal and morally reprehensible military measures, in this case by Israel. Furthermore, while the label of “terrorism” under this definition can be applied to Hamas, it fails to account for the terror caused by Israel’s relentless military regime over the Palestinians.
JW:
Actually Hamas is a Terrorist Organization under International Law. The European Union and several fellow Muslim countries also consider it a Terrorist organization. What Terrorist organization describes itself as a terrorist organization? Note that the idiot first claims that "terrorist" is subjective and than claims that Israel is a Terrorist organization. And what exactly are these terrorist military measures by Israel? Could they be in some/most/all part just Security measures to defend against Hamas terrorism?


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Assume We Have A Can Opener

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JW:
Preface:
Furthermore, this study has proceeded from the premise that Hamas is at its core a political, not a religious, party. Of course, through its own declaration, Hamas is an Islamic movement by charter and by the faith of its leadership and its member base. While this book has addressed how this belief system impacts Hamas’s political outlook, it has not explored the theological underpinnings of the movement’s ideology. In other words, this is not a book about Islam, but Islam has a key presence within the book.
JW:
Baconi asserts that despite Hamas' organizational documents, assertions of it's leadership and the way it is seen by the world, it is primarily political in nature and not religious and this is a basic assumption of the book. That's like arguing about who is likely to win the World Series but having an assumption that pitching can be ignored. Baconi is not just ignoring the main issue but here the dominant issue. A description of Hamas as "political" does not even come in second as a description as it is a military dictatorship. There are no political parties in Gaza as the word is normally used as Hamas took control by force, has never allowed elections, does not allow a free press, freedom of speech or criticism of Hamas. The penalty is either death or death.

Gaza's basic problem is Hamas and not Israel as it is controlled by a fundamentalist religious organization that is not interested in negotiating in the normal political sense and can not be motivated by material concessions for Gaza outside of the context of its effort to eliminate Israel. It can not make real world negotiation because it does not think in the real world. By creating a fantasy that Hamas is primarily a political organization Baconi "understands" (tolerates) Hamas' terrorism thereby continuing to allow Gaza the only reason why it does not have its own country. For those who need points sharply explained, if Hamas' primary objective was to obtain their own country they would stop the terrorism. This tells us that their primary objective is not to have their own country but to prevent Israel from being a country.


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