Re: Cameras for Gaza

From: salvatore h (email suppressed)
Date: Sun Jan 11 2009 - 11:45:28 PST


Very hard to do this subject justice in a forum such as this and although I
think the initial post asking for cameras for Gaza was absolutely justified
and I support the idea of arming civillians with cameras I think the
political discussion is not well served here nor is it well argued thus far.
That is not a criticism only a solid fact. Simply impossible within this
forum. Granted the subject is more important than experimental cinema but
there are many places I can go to discuss politics. I signed up here to
discuss and participate in discissions on experimental cinema. Sending
cameras to Gaza is not in itself a political act. No reason to make it one
here.

On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 7:53 PM, malgosia askanas <email suppressed> wrote:

> Well, I may agree Frameworks may not be the place for political debate -
> but for long as others continue the debate with provocative posts directed
> at me, it's a bit of a stretch to expect me not to respond. Sorry, James
> Cole.
>
> Eli Horwatt wrote:
>
> It seems very strange that this conversation initiated from the rather
>> neutral call for images from Gaza to be recorded.
>>
>
> The call was not really "neutral" - very few such thing are.
>
> Most of the time, I think Zionists become angry amidst legitimate
>> critiques of Israel because they presume that critics either a) believe the
>> country shouldn't exist or b) believe that Palestinians have the right to
>> violently resist the occupation through the killing of civilians. Is it
>> possible for you, Malgosia to accept that someone may not support either of
>> these positions AND YET still critique Israel?
>>
>
> Ah, another little handful of insinuations. First, I am not a zionist -
> unless by "zionist" you mean any person who thinks that the Jews have just
> as much of a right to a state of their own as any other people who want a
> state of their own. And no, I do not subscribe to your (a)-(b) disjunction.
> And I have no quarrel with intelligent, thoughful, informed critiques of
> Israel, may of whose policies and actions I deeply disagree with. But I
> sure haven't seen any such critiques in this "debate".
>
> Everyone know Hamas is a violent terrorist organization launching rockets
>> from schools and civilian domiciles; i doubt anyone here condones that.
>> BUT, you are effectively stating that it is sad, but civillians are
>> justifiably killed when Hamas launches rockets from these areas. I think
>> this is ethically short sighted. As a democratic state that all people
>> should demand act responsibly in times of war, it is INDEFENSIBLE for
>> attacks to occur against schools. What should the army do? They should send
>> in ground forces. I know that this is difficult and may at times be
>> ineffective; but you know what? Too Fucking Bad. No matter who is using a
>> school rocket attacks (which is more than a provocation, but Hamas' means of
>> winning the P.R. battle against Israel by causing more Palestinian civilian
>> deaths) Israel cannot justify shelling schools. Doing so implicitly suggests
>> that the civilians are complicit (which is obviously not always true) or
>> that Hamas is somehow directly responsible (which is absurd).
>>
>
> Eli, this is a ridiculous argument. It implies that Israel, because it is
> a democratic state, has a stronger obligation to protect Palestinian
> civilians than Hamas does. Another appeal to bad conscience and Christian
> guilt. No, to the contrary: if Hamas cares for the Palestinian civilians,
> then it should not endanger them needlessly by launching rockets from
> schools and civilian domiciles. Too Fucking Bad.
>
>
>
> -m
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>

__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.