General Israel/Palestine discussion thread

[Virus]

Six alleged collaborators dead and one baby. Not to mention the rockets that land on their own territory because the dumb-asses can't even shoot them properly.

They've succeeded in killing more of their own side they've killed of their enemy.

That's probably why they fight over who gets to parade the dead baby.

 

[HoverBoarder]

The author of an article I linked to, above, suggests that, after decades of living under siege, in a crowded prison slum, Palestinians see one dead Israeli to 30 dead Arabs as worth the effort.

A pretty bold statement from a guy in Fresno who likely never has, nor never will set foot in Gaza.

I would contend that Gazans are not happy, or "completely OK" with trading the lives of 30 Gazans for the death of 1 Israeli. Instead I would argue that many feel that they have no other choice to resist the occupation, but are not so fickle with their care for life as to gladly give up the lives of 30 people in Gaza for the life of one Israeli.

Ask the families with parents of dead children if they were happy to trade the lives of their loved ones, and you are likely to get a much different answer than the one that Breecher provides.


Granted there are some Qassam and Islamic Jihad members who welcome death and the martyrdom that their deaths will bring, but their sacrifice, and the sacrifice of the civilians around them will do little to improve the lives of the people living in Gaza.

Countries like Iran, which had a large part, if not the sole part in starting the latest conflict are all too eager to use the Palestinian deaths for their own political propaganda purposes. And while Hamas also uses the deaths to consolidate power, the strains of mainstreaming on Hamas as they have moved from a solely terrorist organization to also providing governmental services will likely put them at odds with Iran's new lackeys in Gaza, Islamic Jihad.


The 30 to 1 strategy, and the generally pointless rocket firing succeeds in receiving a lot of a attention, but it fails in providing better lives for the Gazan people.

Breecher is wrong if he thinks that the Gazan people are going to be forever content in sacrificing so many lives for nothing.

 

[Giz]

Six alleged collaborators dead and one baby. Not to mention the rockets that land on their own territory because the dumb-asses can't even shoot them properly.

They've succeeded in killing more of their own side they've killed of their enemy.

That's probably why they fight over who gets to parade the dead baby.

Everytime I think that they couldn't get any more depraved, they prove me wrong.

I don't think I like the term "medieval death cult" anymore… it's an insult to the medieval period.

 

[HoverBoarder]

Six alleged collaborators dead and one baby. Not to mention the rockets that land on their own territory because the dumb-asses can't even shoot them properly.

They've succeeded in killing more of their own side they've killed of their enemy.

That's probably why they fight over who gets to parade the dead baby.

How endearing

 

[Toontown]

Everytime I think that they couldn't get any more depraved, they prove me wrong.

I don't think I like the term "medieval death cult" anymore… it's an insult to the medieval period.

I prefer "necromongers" - which is only an insult to the mythical Necromongers in the Chronicles of Riddick movie.

 

[Toontown]

I was more hoping JJ would admit that, but I guess I'm still optimistic.

Optimism, in that sense, can only lead to disappointment.

 

[bit_pattern]

I paraphrased what you said, without changing the meaning. If you think you were misunderstood, please explain the following quote:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4308023,00.html

 

[WildCat]

And? What kind of conclusions do you draw from that?

I think I can guess what you are implying, and I do not buy it. You are implying that since Israel has a base which is inside a city then it is OK that Hamas hides its military operations inside civilian areas.

This is not serious analysis. A few facts.

1. Bases such as the Israeli ministry of defense are fenced, and in general clearly marked. It is easy to identify them as military installations. An enemy using reasonably accurate weapons should be able to hit them without harming nearby civilians.

2. The large majority of Israeli military installations are not located inside residential areas. By far. And the IDF is moving more and more bases away from cities because of economic reasons.

All this is not different from what typically every army would do. The upshot is that IDF activity is not made to look like civilian activity. And here I would agree with you that such bases are legitimate military targets.


My problem with your post is here. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary, but you need to look for it.

Let me ask you a simple questions. Where are all the rockets in Gaza stored? Just to give you an idea about the numbers. According to estimates Hamas had around 12000 rockets prior to the latest round of fire. In the latest round Hamas fired a 1000 or so, and the IDF destroyed a similar number. A huge number of rockets are sill located somewhere in Gaza. Are you going to claim that these rockets are stored in military bases, and that the IDF simply never bothered to bomb them? In fact, it is well know that the rockets are stored supposedly civilian buildings.

One way to confirm that munitions are stored in places which are not marked for military use is to look for secondary explosions following an Israeli strike. The same conclusion can be reached if the resulting explosion is very strong, compared to the munition used. A very short search allowed me to find a few videos of air strikes on munitions stores in civilian areas, and of Hamas shooting rockets out of neighborhoods.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv7WzsL2mQc&list=UUawNWlihdgaycQpO3zi-jYg&index=3&feature=plcp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DM27rKItRQ&feature=BFa&list=UUawNWlihdgaycQpO3zi-jYg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1Um3xJWGso&feature=BFa&list=UUawNWlihdgaycQpO3zi-jYg

This is an excellent post that raises some excellent points.

Therefore the "**** Israel" posters here will ignore it and the points made.

 

[WildCat]

And the suicide bombers wouldn't have been launched if [something the Israelis did] hadn't happened.

....and the Israelis wouldn't have had to do it if [something the Palestinians/Arabs did] hadn't happened.

....and the Palestinians/Arabs wouldn't have done that if [something else the Israelis did] hadn't happened.

....and the Israelis wouldn't have had to do that if [something the Palestinians/Arabs did] hadn't happened.

and so on since ever.

From my poorly-informed point of view it seems that the Palestinians seem to launch more attacks. Israelis don't attack as often but when they do, they kill a lot more Palestinians. Neither number of attacks nor body count gives an indication as to right or wrong IMO.

We live in the here and now, and I see you recognize that focusing on the past is pointless. So which side is being more reasonable today? Israel proposes 2 states based largely on the 1967 border with mutual land swaps to even out the settlement issue but with Jerusalem still Israeli. Fatah is currently proposing nothing at all (and may or may not recognize Israel's right to exist, depending on the audience) that I have heard about, but they flatly reject Israel's proposal. Hamas has the same proposal they've always had - all of the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel for the Palestinians and death for all the Jews.

IMHO it's an easy choice.

 

[WildCat]

gaza has no oil.

Neither does Israel...

 

[NWO Sentryman]

Everytime I think that they couldn't get any more depraved, they prove me wrong.

I don't think I like the term "medieval death cult" anymore… it's an insult to the medieval period.

I would call them Khornate, but the blood god emailed me today to say that he didn't want to be associated with Hamas.

 

[WildCat]

history, man...history.

That history you get from that blog you posted earlier that explained how the Jews actually brought the Holocaust on themselves?

 

[NWO Sentryman]

That said, if you want an end to the conflict, Israel has to utterly break Hamas, so it is clear for all to see that Hamas has lost, and cannot claim any dlchstosslegende. Then, it should seek the UN's help in creating a lasting peace.

 

[WildCat]

Further to this, Humanitarian Aid trucks, allowed through the Kerem Shalom crossing by Israel into Gaza were rocketed TODAY. No casualties reported as of yet, but they're firing on Humanitarian Aid. Trucks full of food and medical supplies.

2 reasons for this I can think of:
1. The aid convoy didn't pay the proper bribes tax to Hamas.
2. They don't want any aid to get through, so they have more dead babies, sick old people etc. to parade in front of cameras.

 

[WildCat]

More Palestinian casualties:
http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t1#/video/world/2012/11/20/seg-gaza-collaborator.cnn

I'm sure they were given a fair and transparent trial according to the standards of any western country. And who cares anyway? Jews didn't kill them. Get back to the topic, which is "**** Israel".

 

[JihadJane]

That said, if you want an end to the conflict, Israel has to utterly break Hamas, so it is clear for all to see that Hamas has lost, and cannot claim any dlchstosslegende. Then, it should seek the UN's help in creating a lasting peace.

"Break" Hamas and an even more militant, more enraged resistance will emerge.

Here's why (WARNING: distressing graphic footage of casualties in Gaza):

 

[Captain.Sassy]

I think I can guess what you are implying, and I do not buy it. You are implying that since Israel has a base which is inside a city then it is OK that Hamas hides its military operations inside civilian areas.

I'm just pointing out that Hamas having headquarters in residential areas doesn't imply the use of human shields.

My problem with your post is here. There is plenty of evidence [of Hamas deliberately using human shields, outside of one highly publicised incident in which Gaza civilians were encouraged to go onto the roof of a Hamas building] but you need to look for it.

I have looked for it in the Goldstone report and not found it.

I know some conspiracy theorists on here hold that Goldstone was in the tank for Hamas but I haven't seen the evidence.

.... all the rockets in Gaza stored... in... supposedly civilian buildings.

Again, however, my initial question was about Israel targeting the houses of families of Hamas members. Not targeting weapons depots. We can have a separate discussion about targeting weapons caches, but I'm not that interested in that. My interest is in Israel's targeting of Hamas members' homes because they are the homes of Hamas members.

 

[WildCat]

"Break" Hamas and an even more militant, more enraged resistance will emerge.

Here's why (WARNING: distressing graphic footage of casualties in Gaza):

The caption at the 6 second mark says "Dec. 08/Jan. 09".

I don't know what that footage is from, but it's not from the latest Israel/Gaza hostilities.

eta: I think it's from the last time Hamas poked the hornets nest.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv7Wz...3&feature=plcp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DM27...gaycQpO3zi-jYg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1Um3...gaycQpO3zi-jYg

So your evidence is
- two videos from the IDF, saying 'These explosions are so large, they were obviously weapons depots'
and
- a second video, in which the perspective makes it impossible to tell how far the rocket launcher was from a building, let alone what the nature of the building was.

And NB that I'm not saying that Hamas never launches rockets from urban areas... but if what you presented as evidence, then here:

See? Hamas only launches rockets from empty fields.

 

[angrysoba]

THere are now around Five Million Jews in Isreal, and they are giving no signs of wanting to move elsewhere.
Look, whether or not the founding of Israel was a good or bad idea is water under the bridge because of that fact.
Endlessly rehashing 1948 04 1949 serves no real purpose. Question is how do we deal with the situation as it exists.
And note how often "Anti Zionism" shades into general purpose Anti Semitism?

I completely agree with this. I think that the whole question of who owns the land and whether or not Israel was founded in ideal circumstances should basically be laid to rest now. The fact is that Israel is there; it exists and any attempts by anti-Zionists to continue disputing the fact of its existence is now highly dubious to say the very least. Even people like Norman Finkelstein are growing impatient with all the BDS poseurs.

Now that said, the issues of Gaza and the West Bank are current and if continuing dispossession of Palestinians (and disputing the existence of Palestinians is also another highly dubious, to say the least, enterprise) is going on then that is an issue that can't be hand-waved away with the usual crap of "Teh Arabz started it".

Again, that's why I think some kind of international response is necessary to prevent further extirpation of the people currently on that land (as if that isn't "facts on the ground" I don't know what is) as well as a prevention of gangster groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad pinging missiles into Israel.

Of course, I realize that most of Teh Arabz states don't give a flying fig about the Palestinian refugees and if they did then they would have allowed them to settle in their countries and not been variously pushed into refugee camps, stripped of citizenship and persecuted as they have been in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait and elsewhere. Instead, it seems that these countries are deliberately keeping Palestinians in squalor and on the borders of Israel and stateless in order to keep the pressure on Israel.

/My two yen.