CNN - PRC says it killed Israeli settler

[Viva_La_Revolution]

breaking?

I searched LBN... nothing

Settler's body believed found
Thursday, June 29, 2006; Posted: 12:42 a.m. EDT (04:42 GMT

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- A body found near Ramallah appears to be that of an 18-year-old West Bank settler abducted by Palestinian militants last weekend, Israeli security sources said Thursday.

During the day, the Popular Resistance Committees displayed the identity card of a Jewish settler the group said it kidnapped Sunday, and said the captive would be "butchered" unless Israel stopped its incursion into Gaza.

The family of Eliyahu Yitzhak Asheri, who is from the Itamar settlement near Nablus, reported him missing Sunday, telling police he did not return from the French Hill district of Jerusalem.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/28/israel.soldier/

[uppityperson]

1. Yes, this young man was found dead, not a soldier though.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. thank you. fixed title nt.

[Endangered Specie]

3. so when I wake up tomorrow...

should I expect to see a near full scale war in the middle east? (other than the Iraqi civil one, that is)

[Behind the Aegis]

4. Missing teen found dead, buried in Ramallah field

Eighteen-year-old Eliyahu Asheri, from the settlement of Itamar, was found dead by Israel Defense Forces late Wednesday night in the A-Tira neighborhood of Ramallah.

The location of Asheri's body was tipped off to the IDF by a Palestinian militant arrested by the police anti-terror unit and IDF troops on Wednesday.

Shin Bet agents and special IDF troops found the body buried in a field around 2:30 A.M. Thursday, and determined that he was shot in the head soon after he was kidnapped on Sunday.

Soldiers arrested a militant in connection with the murder early Thursday morning.


more...

[Behind the Aegis]

5. I forgot to add...

[kalimera]

8. Selah

Thank you for that.

[eyl]

10. yehi zichro baruch n/t

[BooScout]

6. Israeli's have now kidnapped Hamas elected legislators .....

...in retaliation. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5127556.stm )

Sorry but Israel is just much a thug as Hamas. It's time the US washed it's hands of them both and withdraws all funding to anyone in the region.

[tn-guy]

7. A thought experiment....

Let's assume that in some magical way Hamas were to suddenly have sufficient military might (weapons, personnel, supplies, etc.) to wipe Israel off the map. What would happen? Would you expect that there would be at least even odds that the attempt to annihilate Israel would be made? Frankly, I think it would be a near certainty.

Now, let's assume that Israel had sufficient military might to eradicate the Palestinian proto-state. What are the odds that this would be attempted?

The reality is that the latter case does actually exist. Israel could launch a war anytime she wished which would wipe the Palestinians off the map. Why don't they do so. Simply because they don't have the desire. If Israel was truly "just much a thug as Hamas" Hamas would no longer exist.

Israel has problems and plenty of faults, but equating Israel with Hamas is like comparing a jaywalker with Dillinger.

[parkia00]

11. Another thought Experiement

Killing Israeli civilians by the militants is wrong. Killing Palestanian civilians by the IDF is wrong. One can argue that in most cases the IDF were targeting militants but end up killing their targets and other non target who just happened to be in the area. This is where the problem lies. Knowing full well that your missile will kill the target as well as other people who just happend to be in the area, yet the missile is fired and hits it mark. Another car ferrying militants is destroyed together with a few unfortunate civilians who just happend to be nearby. So be it. The strike was sucessful. A few collateral damage but the IDF can live with it. Tomorrow another strike. Israel has followed the path where it believes that it is better to kill 10 innocent people than to let one guilty party escape. Why? Simple. All these years, one killing here and another there. A missile strike here and there. It has become routine. It is almost expected. The IDF has become numb to Palestanian deaths and injury. They have shown repeatedly that they give very little concern to Palestinian civilians. Almost as if the civilians have become invisible, and all the IDF see are targets and the need to take them out. Everything else is of little concern. They wouldn't bat an eyelid. Like an angry person that got bitten by one fire ant and retaliates by stomping on the area where the guilty ant is scurring. He crushes the guilty ant and a few other ants nearby. Success! The ant is dead and he walks off leaving the grieving relatives of the other ants to clean up. Shock and horror leads to anger and revenge. Before long, that man is bitten again by more ants. He stomps some more....

There is no question that Israel is more powerful that the Palestinian militants. This forces the militants to fight Israel the only way they can, which in turn forces the IDF to respond the only way they can. Like a snake and the mongoose embroiled in their eternal fight, these two know no other way. No other method of resolving their differences. Each too distrustful and all too full of hatred of the other to start down a new road to some other destination and prehaps a better out come. Both looking for every little opportunity to discredit the other and every little reason to strike back at their enemy. Every little attempt to hurt the enemy in anyways even if it mean hurting themselves.

You indicated that if Israel were like Hamas they would have long ago wiped out the Palestinians but they don't do it bacause they don't have the desire. Let me ask you this. Does Israel not wipe out the Palestinians because they don't have the desire, or is it because they couldn't? For every action there is a reaction. What would the reaction be.. from Israel's neighbours, from the EU, from NATO, from all around the world if Israel chose a path of eradication an a grand scale of the Palestanian territories making the Warsaw uprising look like a picnic? With slaughter of Palestinions and razing of antire cities and towns causing huge refugee columns streaming fleeing anywhere they can with the IDF hot on their tails. What would you think the reaction be worldwide? Even from the United states? Do you think the admistration would say yeah! Good idea! We support you! If Israel did this, do you think Israel would survive?

Now let's just say that Israel in an incredible diplomacy coup, managed to get every government, every organization, and every religious sect in the world to look the other way or not complain or raise any issue when the IDF puts forward their plan for the final solution of the Palestinian problem by wiping them off the face of the planet one village at a time until the area is cleansed. Do you really think that Israel or the Zionist in charge wouldn't do it?

Israel wouldn't do it because they can't. That is what sets apart Israel from the militants. Israel is a country and in this international comunity, there are set rules to follow for countries. Israel can flaunt and sometimes break some of those rules; but not all of them. There are just some rules that you cannot break for the moment any country does break them, they cease to become a country in the international family and they would not survive for long. Even during the height of aparthiad in South Africa, that country could not eraticate their "black problem" because they know what the result would be for them. A few countries tried eratication programs in the 20th century. I'm sure you know what the result was with those programs. So ... Israel can't eraticate the Palistinians. Because Israel is smarter than that.

[Ech3l0n]

13. You must be an expert mass mind reader...

...to arrive at the conclusion that the only reason why Israel does not use its immense military and economic power to implement a Hamas like program to eradicate another people is because of potential outcry from other nations. How do you know they would do it if nobody was looking? Are you projecting your own demons?

[parkia00]

14. Read again please.....

I'm talking about something much more than just a 'potential outcry". Israel is already using it's economic might against the Palestinians. There is nothing more dangerous to Israel that an independent, peaceful and prosporus Palestine state that has no need to depend on Israel for it's existence. Right now thay are being squeezed by their necks and life barely goes on at the whim on the moods of Israel. And what demons am I to project?

[kalimera]

15. Not true

That's not true. Jordan is strong, independent etc, and has a peace treaty with israel. They are aware that peace brings prosperity while war is only prosperous for the arms merchants.

A militant Islamic government bent on Israel's destruction living next door on the other hand is indeed a threat, as has been demonstrated on many occasions.

[Ech3l0n]

18. You romanticize the Palestinians while demonizing the Israelis

Why you do it I don't know, but I will not make any unsubstantiated claims. The world is not all black and white.

[parkia00]

21. How so?

Please point out where I "romanticize the Palestinians while demonizing the Israelis". Did I say that what the militants are doing is good, just and proper and everything that Israel does is bad? Where did I say it? What is there to romanticize about the killings of innocent people both Jew and Palestanian? I said it was both bad. Both sides. In their tunnel vision that they view their enemy, they cannot see the harm they cause their own people. On both sides.

[tn-guy]

22. Very good questions - my answers

First let me thank parkia00 for a well-written response and set of questions. I've read through and thought about your post several times. Here is my response.

In your second paragraph you make the case that the relative might of Israel and the Palestinians "the militants to fight Israel the only way they can". While I certainly agree that there is a great asymmetry to the conflict it only "forces" the tactics on the militants, not the requirement to fight. Rather than fight, Palestinian militants could focus their energies on building a peaceful, prosperous entity that could and would rapidly become a Palestinian state.

You devote much of the remaining paragraphs exploring the consequences to Israel were she to embark on an all-out war with the express goal of eradicating Palestine. It is certainly true, as you assert, that such a move would earn Israel the well deserved opprobrium of the international community. However; that would matter only if Israel had due respect for world opinion.

As you note in your final paragraph, "A few countries tried eradication programs in the 20th century. I'm sure you know what the result was with those programs." I am well aware that the eradication program in Cambodia was met largely with a big yawn by the world community. Similarly, the Tutsi-Hutu slaughter was met with much hand-wringing but precious little meaningful intervention to stop it. The current slaughter in Darfur is also being decried by many, but practical efforts to stop it seem to be absent. The only real time when a systematic slaughter was actually forcibly stopped by the world community seems to be WWII. However; a careful reading of history will show that very few people were concerned with the fate of the Jews then until after the point when saving them would not detract from other military objectives. To cite just one example, pleas to bomb the railways leading to the death camps so as to slow down the slaughter fell on deaf ears. I'll spare you the details of the planned famines in the USSR under Stalin or in China under Mao.

This is a lot of discussion on your question regarding likely world reaction to a hypothetical war of annihilation by Israel but I wanted to demonstrate sufficient justification for my answer. World reaction would be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth but not much else. To restate my point, to be constrained by world opinion, one must actually care about the opinion of the world community. I readily grant that part of what restrains Israel is a "decent respect for the opinions of mankind". In other words Israel considers herself to be a part of the community of nations, with all the responsibilities that entails. Your final three paragraphs indicate your implicit agreement with that stance.

That being said, let's pause to consider recent history. We both agree that Israel will not / could not launch a war to eradicate the Palestinians although we may differ slightly on the reasons. However; it is important to note that Israel has been party to a few wars launched with the express intent to eradicate her. In 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 Israel was faced with annihilation. Do you actually believe that had she lost any of those wars a negotiated peace could have been obtained which would have left her citizens unmolested? Would defeat at any of those times have left any part of Israel in existence? At any time since the end of British colonial rule, right up to the present, Palestinians could have an independent, sovereign state. The only thing stopping that is the Palestinian people themselves. Hard though it may be to accept, many in the Arab world, including many, if not most, Palestinians would rather see chaos, warfare, and Palestinian suffering, than accept the existence of an independent Israel. In 1948 the opportunity for a functioning Palestinian state was not thwarted by Israel, it was thrown away by the Palestinians. The demand to have Israel observer the 1967 boundaries was never contested by Israel up to the 1967 war. Today, all that has to happen to have meaningful peace there is for the Palestinian people, through their elected government, to agree to live in peace with Israel. Yet, Hamas was elected with an explicit call for the elimination of Israel.

I'm sorry, but it is hard for me to see any moral equivalence between the Palestinian "militants" and the IDF. I find it hard to believe that anyone could do so after an objective reading of history.

[Recursion]

16. *shrug*

Let's assume that in some magical way Hamas were to suddenly have sufficient military might (weapons, personnel, supplies, etc.) to wipe Israel off the map. What would happen? Would you expect that there would be at least even odds that the attempt to annihilate Israel would be made? Frankly, I think it would be a near certainty.

*shrug* I don't. Israel is a convenient scapegoat for Hamas and a lot of regional governments. If Israel actually *were* wiped off the map, they'd have a problem. Same reason Castro wants the embargo to stay in place.

[sabbat hunter]

23. hamas

is an open terror group. its members are terrorists who refuse to acknowledge israels right to exist and launch rockets into israel daily. the hamas terror organization kidnapped 2 civilians and captured a solider. it has killed one of those civilians. israel has a right to bring those responsible for the terror to trial.

[Igel]

9. And not only did they kill him,

they killed him soon after kidnapping him.

Murderers, and liars.

To kill, and then want to manipulate others so they call the murderers the "true" victim and say that the poor little Palestinians were "merely" acting in self defence. The 'innocent' and 'understandable' part of the cycle of violence.

And the men that did it will be held up as heroes.

Preferably by their nuts.

[barb162]

12. I read somewhere he was badly burned and ID was difficult

which is why even though they found his body a few days back they weren't sure if it was him.

[Scurrilous]

17. Really?

Where did you read that?

[Behind the Aegis]

19. .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x129247

[Scurrilous]

20. Charred body found near Ramallah is not Asheri's

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150885872714&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

<snip>

"The charred body found in the Ramallah area on Wednesday was identified to be a Palestinian man who was killed in a local feud.

The body was taken to the Institute for Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir in order to verify its identity.

Originally, there was speculation that the body was that of missing Itamar resident Eliyahu Asheri."