
(Re: the newsgroup -- followups set to talk.politics.mideast where this
belongs.)

This may make the term 'civil war' dubious, but it does nothing to the
phrase 'destroy the government'. An occupying government is still a govern-
ment, and the Palestinians have made it quite clear that their goal is
not simply to prevent it from occupying the territories that don't con-
fer citizenship (which is your own determination of the distinction) but
to wipe it out entirely (and, not incidentally, the entire Jewish population
it rules with it). This is an intent to 'destroy the government', no
matter where the government happens to be from.


Wasn't a requirement for democracy in Athens. For that matter, isn't
a requirement for the term democracy in the United States, which doesn't
let non-citizens vote either. Both the United States and Israel have
processes whereby it is possible to acquire citizenship, with a great
deal of effort and a modicum of screening -- it's just that it isn't
automatic for living in the territories. It isn't automatic for living
in New York, either.

That said, suit yourself. Having never considered democracy the ultimate
in Good In This World, I could care less if you feel like calling Israel,
or America, or anywhere else, a democracy. Personally, I withhold the
term from Israel for the same reason I withhold it from Britain... the
parliamentary system is a serious handicap.


Again, suit yourself. In which case Israel is *not* attacking its own
people, it is fighting a war on foreign soil, in which case the residents
are entitled to play rough, yes -- but Israel's allowed to get just as
rough, within the bare limits of the rules of war. This includes, among
other things, the right to shoot or bomb *anyone* a national of the coun-
try in question who is fighting them (which permits mass frontal assault
on all rock-throwers), along with the right to take out any installation
of military importance (certain villages with too-good fortifications can
be handled by aerial bombing, as can waterways since they count as supply
lines to the enemy), and the right to do anything whatsoever to whatever
constitutes a government that they can lay hands on (if Hamas is trying
to set up as the ruling party, let them beware). 

If this is not the scenario you want, I recommend you go back to calling
it a civil war. Civil wars have to be handled nicer. You cannot say the
Palestinians are a nation fighting a resistance war against a foreign
nation and still call Israel a government who is treating its own people
cruelly. If the Palestinians are fighting a war against a foreign country,
so is Israel, and the gloves come *off*.

	-Naomi

