יום שישי, 18 ביולי 2014

The Israeli Palestinian conflict, continued. (operation Protective Edge)

I've never been much of a blogger, and it's been quite a while since my single previous blog. i feel drawn to write these words as i read comments on misc websites concerning operation Protective Edge.

Frankly, i'm depressed and not sure why i'm bothering to write these words, because in all likelihood they will not be read by any interested parties, and almost certainly no one's opinion will be changed from whatever static image of reality already exists in their head.
also, i talk a lot, and you'll never read all of this.

nevertheless, i guess i just can't keep my mouth shut, and it makes me feel kind of stupid. here, i'll link XKCD to explain why...

before you read this you should know: i'm not right, nor am i left. however you're politically oriented, you will probably get very annoyed with me.
tough.
read at your own peril.

So why am i writing this? what am i trying to say?

i guess the bottom line is this: the Israeli Palestinian conflict is exactly that. a conflict. i read so much nonsense on the internet with people taking sides proclaiming one side or the other to be right and the other to be wrong. a smarter way of looking at it is that everybody's wrong. oh, and also, everybody's right.

see, there's no black and white, there's lots of gray. is that too much for grown people to come to terms with, seriously? is anyone surprised by this sudden revelation that real life situations are not simple and clear cut? a lot of people who have no understanding and are really really ignorant and not aware of almost any facts are taking sides. you should be wiser. you should know better.

maybe if everyone will just shut up and stop supporting any side for say 5 years, we'll manage to get some negotiations done. you won't believe the damage done by well intending Barak Obama. the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

why is there so much nonsense on the web?
the answer to this is quite frankly fascism, but no one looks at it that way.

it's an AMAZING coincidence, but you can pretty much bet that most pro-Israeli comments are written by... (you guessed it!) Israelis! and members of the Jewish community around the world.

a second UNBELIEVABLE coincidence is that most pro-Palestinian comments are written by... (oh my, you are clever) Arabs! and members of the Islamic faith.

how's that for a coincidence, huh?

having said that, consider that there are about 25-30 million Jews around the world, and that there are about half a billion Arabs and a billion+ Muslims and you'll start looking at the pro-con comment ratio differently.

it's also the reason why we Israelis tend to take the UN none-too-seriously. there are 22 official Arabic countries, and 1 Jewish country. are you surprised that it looks like the UN is taking sides? never mind, i digress.

my personal opinion is that opinions are more diverse among the Jewish/Israeli populations, because, quite frankly, that population is better educated.
education = cynicism + nihilism + liberalism.
there's quite a lot of inner criticism among Jews, with the whole Jewish conscience guilt-trip thing going on. Jews who don't live under fire, say in Sderot, but allow themselves to rant single sidedly against Israel really annoy me.
it's a conflict people. you've got 2 sides to blame. no easy way out for anyone...

I allow myself to have an opinion because... well... i live here. so the Palestinians have and opinion, that's fine. Israelis have an opinion, that's fine. someone else has opinion, quite frankly, what the hell do you know about it? have you seen some kind of 10 second video clip on YouTube and now you're an expert on the middle east? whatever.
I'm pro Israel, but that doesn't automatically mean i agree with everything Israel does and am always against the Palestinians. i just think on the whole, that Israel is more in the right than the Palestinians are. That doesn't make any side perfect.

i don't know if i'm racist, or if i'm being racist in this paragraph but the fact of the matter is that most Arabic nations are (or were until quite recently) dictatorships (some in fact but not in name, like...) and that large amounts of the population were purposely kept ignorant and uneducated because it makes it easier to herd them. if you look at videos from Syria you can see almost comical videos of soldiers beating up civilians and shouting at them "do you want the Israelis to come and take over???". give me a break. i wouldn't touch Syria with a rocket.

Israel has always been a scapegoat to the misc Arabic authorities for everything that's wrong in their populaces lives. it's a force of habit. you just need to hear the rubbish Araduan (Turkish prime minister) sprouts on a daily basis to see how even relatively modern Arabic nations such as turkey can be made to turn extreme.
the whole Arabic Spring thing that's been going on the past few years is because it's so much harder to keep people ignorant these days, what with the internet and social media. i wonder at what point in time the Arabs will realize that Israel was never the enemy, and that Israelis never wanted war.

what's up with atheist Turks by the way? are you asleep on your feet guys? if you don't wake up you're going to lose your country, and the world will have yet another Iran. i'm rooting for you. hope you wake up in time. Araduan is pushing hate as if it were opium for the masses. stand up. say something.

which "people" is in the right of it?
that's an easy one: both and neither. also, are you grouping people according to nationality? don't be a fascist.
you want me to elaborate? well, if you insist...

the Israeli Palestinian conflict has been going on for about a century. would it surprise you to know that by this time atrocities have been committed by both sides? that both sides have experienced tragedies? that innocents have suffered?

in the 1970-1980 the Israeli population was split almost down the middle. half said that we should fight the Palestinians, there's no choice. the other half said that we must make peace, make concessions, do what it takes.
it's 30-40 years later. the ratio is leaning much more heavily towards "fight". this is not surprising in the least to anyone who knows anything about the conflict. the bus bombings, the murders, the small scale wars... a new generation was raised under more extreme conditions. and they're more extreme people.

I've no doubt that it's much worse among the Palestinians. i dare say that there are a lot of people in Gaza who are tired of this conflict, and a lot of people who just want revenge. i can relate. i'm tired of this conflict. i also want revenge. i'm human. this war has been around for a century. there's bad blood. is this surprising?

but i still think that Israel is more in the right of it than the Palestinians. and the reason is simple. not i, nor anyone i know (and i was in the army, still am on reserve, and i know a lot of others like me), will just shoot some random Palestinian in the street. i most definitely wouldn't harm a baby or child.
the same cannot be said about the Palestinians as a people, and there are unfortunately more than sufficient examples to prove this point.

oh, children die alright, and it makes me sick to my stomach. but at least i can honestly say that i'm sure no one is aiming at them.

Both groups have extremists who will stop at nothing. but the Palestinians have a lot more such extremists, mostly due to religious fanaticism and brain-washing under the guise of "education" from an early age, that's been going on for decades. There's Hamas camp, and an Arab version of mickey mouse who'se assasinated by Mossad agents and many other methods.

The ongoing conflict is slowly tarnishing the soul of everyone involved. people become livid with rage, hate and fear and it degrades us all, as people, regardless of nationality.

I'm proud to be Israeli because there are still a lot of people i know, who hear about palestinian children dying and call it a tragedy, say how horrible it is and are deeply saddened and disturbed.
they don't say it cynically to cameras to be the good guys.
they just feel, as i do, that children are innocent.
can the same be said about most the Palestinian people? i have my doubts.

a CNN newspaper woman was recently quoted calling some Israelis Scum for celebrating the Gaza bombardment. she has no right to it, i feel, not having gone through what they've gone through. i don't support those Israelis at all. actually, i'm very sad, and even more depressed by them. because i understand how they came to where they are. they were probably just as rational and reasonable as i am, which indicates the same thing could happen to me. maybe even you?
that's why it's a conflict. that's why it's gray.

The city of Sderot and its population have suffered tens of thousands or rocket bombardments in the past decade. i'm sure you mis-read this line, let me repeat.
tens of thousands.
there's an alarm. once you hear the alarm, you have 15 seconds to get to a shelter nearby.
do the following experiment: go to the toilet. comfy? good. relax. it doesn't work if you're stressed you know... ALARM! you have 15 seconds, to... ahem... "become decent" and get to a shelter. didn't make it? you're dead. again. again. again. again. again. again. again. on a daily basis. more than once a day. for more than a decade. how are you holding up? do you sleep well at night? how is your health? can you concentrate at work? how's your marriage holding up? kids alright? getting good grades in school?
and then suddenly, your army... your country... comes into action after all this time. after all this grief! and starts fighting the people who have been launching rockets at you. how do you react? go to the cinema, see independence day. how do the people react when the US army starts attacking the evil alien spaceship? how do the rebels react when the Death Star explodes?
do you get it now?
it's hard for me to say that i would behave differently. actually, it's very easy for me to say it, but it's probably not true. it's also very easy for that reporter. and for you, safe somewhere in England, Germany, Norway, America, Sweden, Ireland or some Arabic nation.
Why not come live in Sderot? you wouldn't believe the apartment prices there. you could live like a king... no?

i would expect journalists to be more professional and keep a neutral state of mind.
they make it seem like it's not... well... a conflict. like things aren't gray. like someone here is Luke Skywalker, and the rest are Darth Vader.
such superficial understanding is... beyond words.

Golda Meir (a previous Israeli prime-minister [and woman BTW. know many female leaders in the Arab world?]) once said that the Israeli-Arab conflict will continue until the Arabs learn to love their children more than they hate us.

She also said that we may one day forgive the Palestinians for killing our children, but we will never be able to forgive them for making us kill theirs.

I've never heard wiser words.

There are still Israelis who believe in those words. I do. I know many others who do. That's why i'm proud to be Israeli. That's why i want "us" (as opposed to "them") to win.

why is operation protective edge taking place?
I'll tell you what i know from press announcements here in Israel.
But first, understand that Israel is a real friggin' democracy. There is, to some major extent "freedom of the press". That means the army and leaders can't do what they want and cover it up, because it will be published by someone. There's significant Arabic population in Israel, and these are represented in the Israeli Knesset and their elected officials pronounce anti-Israeli criticisms almost on a daily basis, with wide press coverage.
Understand what i'm saying: other countries nearby are not as advanced and liberal. I daresay that Israeli press coverage includes a lot truth and a lot of different sides and view points.

Some background: the Palestinians in Israel are concentrated in 2 major geological based groups. there are the Palestinians in the Gaza strip led by Hamas which in Israel is defined as a terrorist organization and the Palestinians in the West Bank led by Fatah which used to be a terrorist organization but which has put down its arms in favor of negotiations and is currently led by Abu-Mazen.

Fatah and Hamas are not friends and have bad blood. they've very recently decided to try and heal the wounds and sort of join forces. there's a lot of political tension as each organization tries to become top-man for all Palestinians.

The west bank is doing OK economically. Gaza is not. Hamas is, quite frankly, bankrupt, and has not paid salaries to anyone in the past 2 months, before the conflict. Fatah still pays money to employees in Gaza. this asymmetry has caused violent outbursts in Gaza, gunfire in the streets and general mayhem. Hamas needed a way out.

At the same time all this is going on, 3 Israeli teenagers were kidnapped in the west bank by Palestinians associated with and influenced by Hamas. it later turned out that they were not kidnapped, but immediately murdered.
Understand that 3 Israeli teenagers is a big deal here. it's my understanding that this never got any press coverage around the world because it's not really important, it's "just" 3 kids, right?
well, remember that we traded 1000 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom deliberately murdered entire families children included for 1 captive soldier, Gilad Shalit.
Hamas knows this, and wants to release more Palestinian prisoners.

This is not surprising to Israelis, we've come to expect this kind of thing. While to most Israelis deliberate murder of children, Palestinian or not would be an atrocity, due to our western way of seeing things, the same cannot be said about the Palestinians, who view things with an Arabic mentality.

I'll put it this way, i once knew a traumatized Israeli soldier. His trauma originated from seeing Palestinians play soccer with the head of a soldier he knew and who died in an explosion from a mine.
I think the entire world saw that video about the Syrian warrior who ate the heart of one of his victims.
Now, Israeli soldiers may kill Palestinian soldiers. but they'll never play soccer with their heads.
do you see the difference?

what really shocked Israelis was that an Arab boy was murdered in retribution by an Israeli gang.
the act was immediately condemned by every official in the country. the father of one of the boys involved in the act was interviewed calling his own son a madman and letting know the extent of his shame and grief. the leader of the gang is a known mental patient who in the past has tried to kill his own children.
Can you compare the mundane Palestinian murder of on Israeli to the unusual Israeli murder of an Arab? do you know how many Israeli terrorists exist, and how many Palestinian? let's put it mildly: the numbers don't compare.
The Arab murder victim by the way, was recognized by Israeli authorities as a terror victim and his family (Arabs all) will receive the usual state help, including finances and support.
Do you know of anything similar with Israeli terror victims by Arab countries?
Israel is a democracy, remember? same law for Jews and Arabs.

The Israeli army went in force into the relatively peaceful area of the west bank in search of the missing teenagers. naturally there were skirmishes. About 4 Palestinian died. All dead were involved with skirmishes. Some were under aged but all were involved in violence. Again, it's a human tragedy and i wish they wouldn't have been so brainwashed by Hamas. The IDF didn't go in there to kill anyone, and you can see that because in an extremely dense urban area, 4 casualties is an incredibly low number. ask the Americans in Iraq.

It's entirely possible that i or some friends would've been called into service to help search for those hostages. You think i'd start shooting at people randomly? think again. i would shoot in self defense though.
On the other hand, maybe if i were a Palestinian teenager and i saw Israeli soldiers breaking down doors for whatever reason, i might have also shown resistance. if i knew how to make a Molotov cocktail, anything could happen. that's the tragedy. that's why it's a conflict. that's where it becomes gray.
you expect different?

A lot of Hamas infrastructure in the west bank was destroyed as retribution for the kidnapping, as it was held responsible for it. remember that Hamas is considered a terrorist organization here.

Hamas seized on this opportunity and increased (because it's always firing rockets, Sderot, remember?) it's firing rate significantly and added more cities into the range of fire. Ashdod, Beer-Sheva, Ashkelon, Tel-Aviv, Jerusalem. that's about 3 million people under rocket fire.
Israel reacted and a cycle of violence ensued.

This initially suited Hamas (who miscalculated). Firing at Israel increases Hamas's prestige in the average Palestinian's eye, and distracts from the empty bank account. Hamas also knows that it gets contributions from Arab nations and the UN after each Israeli skirmish, so it was probably hoping to alleviate some of its financial problems.

At the time no one yet realized the extent of operation, and it wasn't even considered an operation. it was just one of those days, both to the people in Gaza and the people in Sderot.

Since then there have been a number of attempted infiltration attempts into Israeli territory by Hamas forces. these infantry forces did not come to attack military targets, or for some legitimate operation. Their purpose was to kill as many people as they saw, regardless of any criteria.
if, for example, they would have found themselves in an Arabic village, they probably would have caused many casualties before realizing their mistake.

All such infiltration attempts were wiped out by Israeli forces before any damage was done.

These infiltration attempts usually use tunnels, designed specifically for the purpose of killing and kidnapping normal everyday civilians like you and me.

Since then it has become apparent that there are many more tunnels and that these are much more dangerous that initially considered.

All of this time, Hamas has continued to launch rockets at Israel. almost all of the rockets launched at Israel were neutralized in flight, or missed Israeli settlements entirely.
I myself have gone (with my wife and baby) into shelter 7-8 time.
understand me: i have nothing against any Palestinians. i'm just trying to live my life and do my job. Hamas won't let me.

There was an attempted cease fire. Israel stopped firing at 9. Hamas continued firing again and again and actually increased firing rate because it's operatives realized that Israel isn't shooting back. Israel held fire until 15:00 and decided to retaliate.

violence ensued for a while.

There was a humanitarian cease fire. Hamas fired during that timeout as well, though "only" twice. Israel didn't react to the provocation.

There's a lot of criticism against Israel because Israeli casualty rate is so low, and Palestinian casualty rate is so high. this equation is made out of 2 components:

low Israeli casualty rate - good. is there a problem? Israel has a strong army, is well practiced in emergency situation, is in many ways a technological super power. it's good that we can minimize our losses. only our enemies have a problem with that, and i don't. complaining on this clause is tantamount to "I wish more Israelis died". whatever.

high Palestinian casualty rate - i hurt for every Palestinian child or innocent. i'm deeply sorry for that. i'm a father, i have kids. trust me, when i hear that a baby or a child is hit, it makes my want to heave and i feel physically ill. i can understand why a Palestinian would hate Israel after these things. that's why if's a conflict. that's why it's all gray.
I'm not at all sorry for combatant casualties though. that's fine by me.
though as a thinking individualist i realize that if i were born in Gaza i'd be a Palestinian soldier and not an Israeli one and vice-versa.
The same reasoning probably can't be expected from Hamas troops.
Education and brainwashing, remember?

In Israel we often say that something is "so sad, it's funny" the current IDF/Hamas confrontation can only be compared to the following Monty Python sketch. Arthur (IDF) is not interested in a fight. Hamas, just won't let up, no matter the beating, and the tragedy is that when striking at Hamas (the black knight) the Palestinian population (the limbs) suffer. in order to survive politically against Fatah, for this redundant confrontation, Hamas has to be able to "call it a draw" in the end.

We could talk about ratios against other armies in similar situations such as Americans in Iraq, about IDF (Israeli defensive forces) attempts to warn Gaza populations to evacuate, to giving warning shots, to cancelling strikes when innocents are seen, but frankly, even though Israel turns out very well in these regards - no one cares.

There's something that any adult must come to terms with. when bombs start flying, no one is safe.
No Israeli soldier has ever aimed at a child.
Any who have and are known have been imprisoned, i'm sure.
Children have died, however. it's a tragedy. i mean it.
I know that when such catastrophes occur, the IDF investigates. if they're done on purpose by some crazy soldier, that single madman will spend their life in jail. if it was an operation accident, sometimes legitimate and sometimes a discharge is in order. this is war. it's not pretty.

This is one of the reasons i'm proud to be an Israeli. because when something goes wrong and a tragedy happens, we do what we can to decrease it's chances from happening again. it doesn't please us. we didn't choose this fight and we don't enjoy it, even when we win.

Hamas is using civilian population as cover. When the IDF urged citizens to clear their homes because soon an infantry invasion will begin and no guarantees can be made once bullets start flying, it was Hamas who told the same population not to leave, and threatened its own population that anyone leaving will be "taken care of" after the fight. so who's really "occupying" the Gaza strip? Israeli forces were not involved until a few days ago. Israeli forces are trying to minimize Palestinian casualties, while Hamas is trying to prevent this and in fact is maximizing them.
is this getting through to you?

the Israeli ground forces invasion is due to the tunnel threat. we must find and destroy all the tunnels leading into Israeli territories, or suffer major terrorist activity in the following months.

what is the Israeli alternative?
what can we do otherwise?
what do you expect Israel to do?
what would you do?

to sit and do nothing?

Surprisingly enough we actually tried that!
We actually stood by and let Hamas fire rockets on Sderot for 8-9 years without reacting.
To us, that was strength in restraint, due to our western standards of respecting life.

Thousands of rockets landed, thousands were wounded, dozens dead. whole populations traumatized.
Has the fighting stopped? did it help? no.
Did Hamas say, these people don't want war, let's negotiate? what do you think? there's a reason why we call it a terrorist organization.
Have you seen images from Gaza on the day of 9/11? it looks like a really really big party...
Have you seen images from Gaza on the day that Osama Ben Laden died? not quite as happy then.

in 2012 IDF forces reacted by surprise and in strength.
this managed to significantly reduce firing rate (but not stop it), to "just a few" rockets a week. sounds reasonable, right? do the bathroom experiment again. did you make it this time?
this lasted until the current predicament, in 2014...

to conclude:

consider what Israel has to do to protect its citizens:
* alarms in all cities
* give instructions
* prepare shelters
* develop new technologies to stop rockets in flight
* supply warning services such as applications and websites

consider what Hamas has to do to protect Palestinian population:
* stop launching rockets at Israel

and to prove my point...
* there are very few casualties in the west bank, on a day to day basis. Israel isn't murdering and slaughtering the Palestinians who've put down their guns.
* when rockets from Syria don't land in Israeli territory, and Syria doesn't supply weapons to Hezbollah or develop nuclear weapons - Israel doesn't attack in Syria.
* when Hezbollah isn't firing rockets from Lebanese territory - Israel doesn't attack in Lebanon
* Jordan and Egyptian border is quite, and Israel has not attacked these countries.

it looks like Israel is good for its word. peace for peace. that's even the current Israeli motto for our prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu.

why can't Hamas accept, and allow the Palestinian population to live in peace?

i'm going to sleep now.

i'm tired, and sad, and depressed.
And i'm winning the war. feel better?
Still a conflict. still gray.
And still, if you shoot at me, i'll shoot right back at you.
That's life, and yours is less precious to me than my own.

may we all know peaceful times.

יום חמישי, 14 בפברואר 2008

Law, Order, Justice & Chaos

Every young male, when asked what he would like to be when he grew up, probably answered at some point in his life "a Policeman", and not only that, but with a capital P. why this fascination with being a symbol of the law?

It is my personal opinion, that when asked most people would say they're the "good guys" and other people in their way are the "bad guys". while this subject deserves and will receive it's own article, i wish to discuss peoples view of the law from this perspective.

Peoples ability to see things the way they'd prefer to has always amazed me, and one of these illusions is the complete mixup between law, justice, order and chaos.

Viewing the law to be right, true or correct is a common misconception, and on this i wish to elaborate.

Let us first, in order to avoid any semantic differences, define our values for the words "law", "justice", "view" and "order".
This will enable us first and foremost, to see if there are any misunderstandings which might be caused simply by personal intepertation of a word.
We might then argue about the meaning of a word, but not about the idea said word is supposed to express.

"View" - in every society there are things which are considered acceptable and things which are considered taboo. in some societies, the death penalty is acceptable, in others it is not. in some societies war is a great thing, and in others it is not. a view, for us, would be a specific generally accepted belief or view held by this society, which matches its values etc.
ex1. it is wrong to hit children.
ex2. thieves should have their hand chopped off.
ex3. jihad is a blessed thing.
these are views of different civilizations, and we are not yet at the stage of discussion which is correct, true, good or right (we have not yet defined these values).

"Law" - in most societies there operates a force, backed by the governing authority, whose purpose it is to uphold commands given by this authority. these commands or regulations are laws.
ex.1 you will pay taxes.
ex.2 you will stop at a red light.
ex.3 you will burn witches.
these are laws of different civilizations at different time periods, again we are not ready to discuss what is correct etc'.

"Justice" - quite frankly, justice is a more acceptable form of the word revenge. it might also not contain the childish necessity of doing unto other what has been done unto you, but simply wish to resolve an uncomfortable situation. in either case, the intentions are irrelevant to us - only the deeds.
ex1. if a killed b it's just for someone to avenge b.
ex2. if a killed b it's just for a to be sent to prison, or pay a's family etc'.
ex3. if a has collided his car into b's car it's only just for a to pay for the damages.
again, ideas of justice change dramatically between societies, and we will not discuss correctness in this article.
please note that justice is a form of View.

"Order" - order is the acceptable everyday state. people in a country ruled by a dictator believe order exists where they are, and so do people in countries ruled by a democracy or any other form of government. amazingly enough, most people with ruling system a believe order doesn't exist in countries with ruling system b.
please note that Order is a function if the people lack of views, and\or their willingness to be governed.

"Chaos" - chaos is a lack of order, a state achieved usually when peoples Views have collided too strongly with the Laws set on them by their rulers, and the people are unwilling to be subjected to these rules.
ex1. rioting
ex2. increased criminal activity
please note that striking is not a function of Chaos, as it is allowed by the law.
naturally, where it is not allowed by the law, it is also a form of chaos.

a state of Chaos will not erupt unless an entire strong population be threatened by said laws, and therefore the laws and views can have differences so long as those differences aren't often relevant for the ruling class.
this means anyone not of a ruling class can be subjected to laws that are not in league with the society's views but are profitable for the ruling authority, or at least the majority of the population is docile enough to accept said law.


Now that we have these definitions we can start thinking about the way the system operates and what this means to us.

In a perfect world everyone will have the same Views, Laws would be created the guard these Views, these Views and Laws *will be correct*(which we will not discuss currently).
We do not, however, live in a perfect world and so problems arise.

Let us look at the extreme cases, and see what we can deduce.
1: laws do not exist and/or no one upholds the laws and/or the law is not kept by the common people.
It might be said civilization would function, at least for a while. it is probable to assume that eventually some criminal will evolve (ref. Chicken and Game Theory) and that society will not be able to handle said criminal.

we deduce a need for laws and an upholding force.

2: laws exist and are obeyed to the extreme.
on the one hand crime will be at a low, presuming the population is reasonably docile. on the other hand, blindingly following laws, which are as we stated earlier, the commands issued by the rulers is not a good thing. Consider the Nazis. Consider crimes of war. we won't discuss the Death Penalty here, but again, it should be considered.

we deduce that following laws to the extreme leads to a state of harm on the weaker classes, who will eventually revolt, but only after the camel's back is broken, which could take a long time.

how do these to conclusions add up?
one says - don't do as you're told, the other says - you must do as you're told.

not exactly.

what we actually deduced is that laws have to exist, and that people must not follow laws blindly.

if laws have to exist, but you don't always follow them, how is this state different than laws not existing and people doing what they think they should do? we continue..

our conclusions don't mean people must break laws, it means they must only go along with them if they match their Views, or if they don't object to the laws too strongly.

this means you should do what you think is right, even if it is against the law, because in an imperfect world the law can be corrupt, wrong, irrelevant, outdated or simply doesn't consider all facts.
questions you should ask yourself are:
who made this law?
who profits from it?
who is oppressed by it?

when doing jury duty you swear to uphold the written law.
in many places the law includes the punishment as a sub-clause (though this is not a separate part in our definition)
at the time you take that oath you are not completely familiar with the law, which means you might be swearing to, for example, killing the entire family of the individual charged with the crime.
what kind of oath is that?
you rely that the law matches your views, and that your view match the views of the general populace.

note that earlier we mentioned laws such as "you will burn witches" when in fact that law was "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" and the crime for being a witch was burning at the stake. this is because by letting the state do things on your behalf, while staying in a state of order, is in every practical sense the same as accepting the authority's solution, which makes you partly responsible, which means when a witch was burned it wasn't the witchfinder in charge that bore responsibility, but everyone there who didn't revolt.

there is a problem with doing what you think is right, however, and that is your views do not necessarily coincide with the views of the general public, who may or may not have Correct views.
please note that Correctness(which we have not yet defined properly) is not a democratic variable:
ex1. 300 years ago people believed the world to be flat, that stinking was the only safeguard against the "demons of ill-health", and that should you be insane a hole must be drilled in your head to let "the madness demons" out.

this is the basic defect (and strength) of democracy - it's versatility, and the actual reason why we require laws - not because they're correct, but because they give us a relatively measurable standard.

a democracy that's willing to customize it's laws to the populace views will be relatively safe from the problems we mentioned (but no system is truly safe, because systems don't think, nor do law, only people do).
we will also note, that all systems are corruptable at least to some extent, which also gives rise to privliges (private laws).

now that we've discussed laws, we should discussed their upholders - the police, military or religious forces.
should the laws match the views of the society, these people can then be considered heroes fighting for a society against those who wish to harm it.
should the laws not coincide the views of the society these people are then the oppressors fist.
supposing we have a benign society that one day starts to undertake a change for the worse, under a totalitarian leadership (such as the Nazis, again). do you believe that the said force's personal will resign?
some will. others just need a job, and that's all it is to them.

conclusion, do not give credit or respect to those who haven't earned them - a uniform is made of cloth, which comes off, and everyone's made of the same flesh.
heroes are hard to come by (but they do exist, maybe you know one, maybe you are one).

on a final note, both laws and democracy are nothing to be proud of because as stated earlier - they're flawed in the extreme. this doesn't mean however, they are not the best tools currently available to us (nor does it mean that they are). i would like to one day try and live in areas divided to groups and subgroups by views, but i fear that'll never happen.

when confronted with a legal issue, consider the laws, consider your views, consider the views of the general populace, consider the damage to Order and strengthening of Chaos should the law you are breaking be abolished, consider the questions mentioned earlier, but whatever you do, the key word is CONSIDER = THINK.

do not accept what you are told by any authority to be true, try and contradict arguments, don't accept a truth because it's probably just a View, and be open to other arguments.
if a conclusion is correct, it will stand no matter how rigourus the testing procedure.

i will also state that if a law causes harm to you personally, you don't necessarily have to revolt against it, if you wish to be considerate with others opinions (though you are obviously not obligated to any such thing).

a few last examples of laws that may or may not be corrupt, depending on your Views,
many laws exist supposedly as a view the populace has of intolerance against a certain group:
ex1. homosexuals
ex2. drug users
ex3. gypsies
just because i don't mention the laws already makes you think are there laws? should there be laws? were there laws? were they abolished? who is oppressed by such laws? why should such a law exist? why should such a law not exist? who gains something from this law? what are the public's views concerning these groups? what are are the relevant authorities?
this is good practice.

it might be that a law needs breaking, and it might be that it's not such a bad law after all.