Why does Israel kill Palestinians?

Answer 1

Israel does not murder Palestinians. However, while protecting its citizens and defending its borders, many Palestinians both armed and unarmed have died. I often wonder what the reaction of the US might be if 60,000 unguided rockets had been lobbed from Tijuana into San Diego over the past 5 years. And how long the US would show 'restraint'. And whether the US would worry a lot about 'proportionate' response. Just musing.

Answer 2

Simple Answer

There is an important distinction between actuality and intentionality. Actuality is what occurs, regardless of desires and intentionality is purpose and rationale. There is certainly an actuality that the Israeli Army has been responsible for the death of Palestinian Civilians and there is also certainly an actuality that Palestinian Militant and Terror Organizations have caused the death of Palestinian Civilians. It is very important to note, however, that there is no intention in the Israeli Army, no memorandum, and no unofficial desire to kill Palestinian non-combatants. The deaths of Palestinian Civilians are regrettable and if the violence were to cease on both sides, Palestinian Civilians would not have to worry about being embroiled in a conflict where both their country and another could end them.

More Complex Answer

To properly understand the nature of Israeli/Palestinian issues and relations, especially the ongoing Arab-Israeli Conflict, it is necessary to first understand something of the history of both the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, the history of Israel itself, politics and tactics employed by both sides and the roles played by foreign nations that have become involved in the conflict.

It is also worth bearing in mind that certain sections of the media are highly fickle and have a tendency to show bias to one side or the other - as an example, Israel was almost universally lauded by the West for many years after the modern state was established on the 14th of May 1948. The Israelis set about cultivating large areas of what had previously been desert and constructing a modern infrastructure which improved the quality of life for all of its inhabitants, Jewish and Muslim alike, and as a result, they were greatly admired around the world - not least of all when the Israel Defence Force achieved victory in a war against Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon with support from the Iraqi air force in 1967. That war allowed Israel to take control of areas not previously part of the country, including the Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza. According to the Torah (the Jewish Bible) and the Old Testament, the land known to Jews as Eretz Yisrael was given to the three Jewish patriarchs (Avot in Hebrew - Abraham and his sons Isaac and Jacob) by G-d in return for the Covenant (agreement) that Abraham made with G-d in around 2000BCE(BC). Interestingly, Abraham is an important prophet in Islam as well as in Judaism, known to Muslims as Ibrahim, and as such some Muslims recognise the validity of Israel's claim to the land while taking issue with certain Israeli policies.

The Jewish population in ancient times was much reduced following the land's conquest by the Romans, especially as a result of the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132CE after which Jews were expelled in large numbers. Later, the land came under the rule of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius carried out a mass assassination and expulsion of the resulting Jews and the area remained under Byzantine control until the 7th Century CE(AD) when Israel was subject to a series of invasions and eventual conquest by Muslim armies. Control passed between various Muslim rulers and the Christian Crusaders until, in 1516, it became a part of the Ottoman Empire to which it belonged until the 20th Century.

Jews had been gradually returning to Israel - now known as Palestine, since the 12th Century and numbers swelled following the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal during the 15th Century. By 1881, many East European Jews were forced to live in appalling conditions and were subject to pogroms, riots - often state-supported - directed at them which resulted in many deaths and wide scale destruction of property. Many fled these, and traveled to Palestine in a wave of immigration known as the First Aaliyah which led to the rise of political Zionism, a movement that supported the establishment of a Jewish state and which enjoyed support from both Jews - who had lived in various countries as an (often persecuted) minority for centuries and anti-semites who saw it as a way to get rid of the Jews they hated. This attracted Orthodox Jews to Palestine in what became known as the Second Aaliyah starting in 1904 and ending with the start of WW1, as Orthodox Judaism involves living in a distinctively Jewish way that is made far easier if the follower lives in a Jewish state among other Orthodox Jews. The Third and Fourth Aaliyahs saw another 100,000 Jews adopt the country as a home, and then with the rise of the Nazis another 250,000 as they fled Hitler. It is easy to see that the Muslim Palestinians would have been beginning to worry that their country was about to be taken over and, human nature being what it is, fear that they would face persecution as a result. Similar fears are expressed by people in other parts of the world that experience high levels of immigration even now, such as in those parts of Britain that are home to a high number of Polish immigrants, those parts of France with many immigrants from North Africa and those parts of the USA with a high Mexican population. Muslims, who have spread throughout most European nations and the USA, often find themselves subject to similar concerns.

Following WW2, as the world struggled to comprehend fully the horror of what had taken place during the Holocaust (Hebrew: "Shoah," meaning "destruction), sympathy for the Zionist cause increased greatly. On the 29th 1947, the United Nations Partition Plan was created with the aim of dividing Palestine into two halves of which one would remain under Palestinian rule and one would become a Jewish homeland. Jerusalem, of high importance to Jews and Muslims alike, would become an international city owned by neither side - a move accepted by the Jews but rejected by the Muslim Arab League and Arab Higher Committee. It is important to realise that the Arabs' decision was at least partially influenced by the fears mentioned above, the fear that they were losing their land and would suffer as a result. On the 1st of December, a three day strike was called during which Muslims would not work - a measure intended to demonstrate their disapproval in a peaceful way, but Arab mobs began rioting and attacking Jews and their property. The Jews were forced to defend themselves, but this gradually turned into offensive measures designed to prevent future uprisings and led to the 1948 Palestine War. The Muslim Palestinian economy collapsed and around a quarter of a million Arabs fled to other nations after the strike, fearing that they were about to be punished by the Jews. This served to heighten Arab worries that the Jews sought to get rid of all Muslims within Palestine, fears not helped during the war itself when a further 711,000 (around 80% of all Arabs within the region) also fled and became refugees. With their descendants, they now number over 4 million and the issue remains a major contributing factor to a number of problems in the Middle East to this day; not least of all because they form a massive drain to the resources of those countries they now inhabit, causing those countries to seek the dissolution of the Jewish state so that the refugees can return there, solving the problem of feeding them all.

Neither side is without blame. Israel has followed policies highly prejudiced against the Arabs, which has forced many of them to leave their ancestral homes and live in very poor conditions. However, Palestinian groups have repeatedly mounted violent attacks on Israel beginning with those carried out by the Fedayeen who were based in Gaza. Arab nationalists, under the leadership of Nasser of Europe, stated that they refused to recognise Israel's legitimacy as a state and called for its destruction. In 1967, troops from Egypt, Syria and Jordan gathered at Israeli borders, expelled United Nations peace keepers and prevented Israeli access to the Red Sea. Israel launched preemptive air strikes and the Six Day War began.

Arab terrorist organisations launched a new wave of attacks against Jewish targets around the world at this time, including the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich when eleven people were murdered by a group called Black September, who were associated with the Fatah organisation, a faction of the Palestine Liberation Organisation or PLO.

Until this time, Israel had been ruled by the relatively left-wing Labor Party under the leadership of Golda Meir. However, following Israel's controversial actions during the Yom Kippur war (when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on the country), Meir was forced to resign and in 1977 the more right-wing Likud party took control following an election. Likud is thought by many to be anti-Palestinian. This accusation appears to be supported by quotations from some members such as deputy defence minister Ze'ev Boim, speaking in 2004:

"What is it about Islam as a whole and the Palestinians in particular? Is it some form of cultural deprivation? Is it some genetic defect? There is something that defies explanation in this continued murderousness."

Moshe Feiglin, leader of a right-wing Likud faction named Manhigut Yehudit, made a similarly anti-Palestinian comment to the New Yorker magazine:

"You can't teach a monkey to speak and you can't teach an Arab to be democratic. You're dealing with a culture of thieves and robbers. Muhammed, their prophet, was a thief and a robber and a liar. The Arab destroys everything he touches."

The fact that a political party with members who display sentiments of this kind was democratically voted into power suggests that a significant number of Israeli people share similar views; though it must not be forgotten that there are many Israeli groups dedicated to improving the lives and increasing the rights of Palestinians also.

Palestinian attacks upon Israel have continued. In 2006, Hezbollah - a Lebanese paramilitary group (who, in fairness, it should be pointed out also supply social services including schools and hospitals to Lebanese Shi-ite Muslims) - began an artillery attack on Israeli communities near to the northern border that it shares with Lebanon. Two Israeli soldiers were captured and held hostage, sparking the Second Lebanon War which further inflamed Israeli-Arab tensions. Then, in 2007, Mossad (the Israeli intelligence authority) supplied evidence that a facility in Syria was being used to develop a nuclear program - though it was later confirmed that Israel and Syria had been involved in discussions regarding a peace treaty, Israel's fears that resulting nuclear weapons might be used to attack the country (which after all had been involved in conflict with Syria in the past) led to the government ordering the air force to bomb the site which in turn was instrumental in causing the collapse of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas ("Islamic Resistance Movement") which governs Gaza.

Hamas, and groups sympathetic to them, began a series of strikes on Israeli towns during which Israel claims explosive rockets and mortars were deliberately targeted at civilian areas. Whether or not it is true that they were targeted in this way, the attacks caused several deaths, a great deal of destruction and widespread terror. As a result, Israel launched Operation Cast Lead, a series of air strikes against Gaza, followed by a ground operation in which troops entered the area. Hamas claim that Israel deliberately attacked civilian facilities such as schools and hospitals, while Israel claims that these locations were being used to house military personnel and materiel. Both parties are probably correct to a degree - the United Nations accepts that some locations were being used as Israel claims, but it is true that many civilians were killed and many others injured. Mistakes are made in war, and though Israel would be unlikely to target civilians deliberately - whether through morality or so as to avoid international criticism - the nation's actions during the war have led to widespread condemnation.

It must be realized that, while Israel has killed many people in Gaza, doing so was in response to violence directed at Israel by groups based in Gaza; and that as far as Israel is concerned it was seeking to prevent further attacks on its citizens, which, after all, is the #1 job that governments are hired to do.

Answer 3

Historically, Jews are Palestinians. The Israeli military, like all civilized militaries, will unfortunately sometimes kill innocents when removing enemy forces that threaten their lives. But Israelis do not target civilians.