Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: MicroBalrog on January 05, 2009, 09:39:23 AM
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So I was coming home from college today and saw my entire street blocked off – police, firefighters, Army troops, the works. Naturally, I assumed that a rocket fell on my street and asked one of the soldiers where it hit – and was told it hit a 'kindergarten', with the guy pointing in the vague direction of my house. Nobody was injured, he said.
There is a kindergarten literally in front of my house. I assumed immediately this was the one hit and started making my way past the cops, spectators, and TV crews, while frenziedly calling all the house phones, trying to get to my father – I realized he wasn't directly injured, but I feared he might have had heart problems due to the events.
By the time I got closer to the end of the street Mom reached Dad's spare cell and it turned out he had slept right through the whole thing – and the rocket hit a different kindergarten a block away. It was empty – all of them are – so there were only ten people in psychological shock.
Given I know 2swap will be reading this:
Everybody in my family is perfectly safe and sound. All is good.
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Any reason you can't take a vacation with the whole family to a city further off?
Stay safe, and NOW do you see why some of us are saying "This has to end now"? That this is a case where, in war, you have to destroy the enemy completely, whatever it takes, or it will never, ever, ever, EVER end for what's happening to your neighbors? Yes, it will be ugly. Yes, there will be collateral damage. That happens in war. It happened in WWII, and it was necessary when it happened. It is not pretty. But it is reality.
Because otherwise, there will be a "cease fire".
And Hamas will fire more rockets at you.
And then they will call for a "cease fire".
And then they will fire more rockets at you.
Ad infinitum.
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Glad you're alright. Do what you need to do. Stay safe if possible.
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Any reason you can't take a vacation with the whole family to a city further off?
How will we pay for it? Why should we move out?
Because of rockets that fail to hit the city most of the time and are less likely to kill us, statistically, than traffic accidents?
Stay safe, and NOW do you see why some of us are saying "This has to end now"?
I've never said otherwise. But our enemy is Hamas. We need to break their back. Not 'the Palestinians' as an entity. Hamas needs to die.
The Palestinians have a right to nothing less than full and complete national independence. This is not a leftist position.
It is possible for me to advocate the total, complete, and utter annihilation of Hamas while supporting the right of the Palestinian people for self-determination.
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How will we pay for it? Why should we move out?
Because of rockets that fail to hit the city most of the time and are less likely to kill us, statistically, than traffic accidents?
I've never said otherwise. But our enemy is Hamas. We need to break their back. Not 'the Palestinians' as an entity. Hamas needs to die.
The Palestinians have a right to nothing less than full and complete national independence. This is not a leftist position.
It is possible for me to advocate the total, complete, and utter annihilation of Hamas while supporting the right of the Palestinian people for self-determination.
Except that at this juncture, trying to separate Hamas from the Palis is like trying to eat soup with a knife. Which is unfortunate, but that's precisely their strategy.
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According to the UN and various NGOs, only about 25% of the Palestinian casualties are civlians. So the army seems to be doing a good job 'separating' them.
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According to the UN and various NGOs, only about 25% of the Palestinian casualties are civlians. So the army seems to be doing a good job 'separating' them.
Well, if you were following the news here in the US (why the heck would you) You'd think you were slaughtering civillians left and right.
if the UN estimates the civilian causalities at 25%, they are probably closer to 15%-20%...
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Well, look at the bright side: chances are another rocket won't hit in your neighborhood ;)
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Well, look at the bright side: chances are another rocket won't hit in your neighborhood ;)
Actually, I'd be worried that it would. They know they hit a kindergarten and in a residential neighborhood, good target for them. If that launch site didn't get creamed by now, they can just use the same numbers.
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Actually, I'd be worried that it would. They know they hit a kindergarten and in a residential neighborhood, good target for them. If that launch site didn't get creamed by now, they can just use the same numbers.
Remember they miss something like 60% of their shots.
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Remember they miss something like 60% of their shots.
You don't take -comfort- from that do you? I guess I shouldn't be asking questions like that of a guy having to survive in (essentially) a war zone... no additional discomfort intended on my part. But I sure wouldn't be re assured if someone was bombing my living area but missing 40% of the time. -B
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Remember they miss something like 60% of their shots.
Yeah, I know, but if they know that rocket hit there, they can just fire another with the same azimuth and elevation if the launcher is still in the same place, and unless wind speed and direction changed dramatically, or the rockets vary greatly, it'll come down in relatively the same area.
The absolute worst thing to have happen when targeted by artillery is for one round to miss in front of you, and then the next round to miss behind you.
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You don't take -comfort- from that do you?
They miss the CITIES they're aiming at 60% of the time.
10% of the time, they miss the COUNTRY they're aiming at.
but if they know that rocket hit ther
I'm not sure they know that. I mean. Say you're a Palestinian artilleryman. You fire a rocket. Another guy like you fires two more. You can't communicate. But you DO know one rocket - maybe yours, maybe the other guy's - hit a kindergarten. Was your aim correct? How can you know?
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They miss the CITIES they're aiming at 60% of the time.
10% of the time, they miss the COUNTRY they're aiming at.
I'm not sure they know that. I mean. Say you're a Palestinian artilleryman. You fire a rocket. Another guy like you fires two more. You can't communicate. But you DO know one rocket - maybe yours, maybe the other guy's - hit a kindergarten. Was your aim correct? How can you know?
This is true. They'd have to be relatively organized. But all they have to do is have CNN on to know exactly when and where it hit. CNN is Hamas' artillery spotter, now. Since they ought to know the approximate flight duration of each rocket, they can work backwards from there.
Assuming someone is actually that aware of things. But all it takes is a stopwatch and a TV. Fire...wait, wait..."We've just received word that a rocket has hit in Ashdod..." Bingo.
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Mind, the Israeli government prohibits publishing exact locations more accurate than the nearest city.
But if you live in Ashdod, rumours about the locations will... err, spread.
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They miss the CITIES they're aiming at 60% of the time.
10% of the time, they miss the COUNTRY they're aiming at.
I'm not sure they know that. I mean. Say you're a Palestinian artilleryman. You fire a rocket. Another guy like you fires two more. You can't communicate. But you DO know one rocket - maybe yours, maybe the other guy's - hit a kindergarten. Was your aim correct? How can you know?
Why would you assume the bold face text?
Anyone with a cell phone or internet connection (email, blog posting, text message, voice, twitter) can be your forward observer. Toss in a cheap GPS and a compass and you could increase your effectiveness quite a bit.
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Anyone with a cell phone or internet connection (email, blog posting, text message, voice, twitter) can be your forward observer. Toss in a cheap GPS and a compass and you could increase your effectiveness quite a bit.
I'd sure hate to be the forward observer for a battery that had the on-target rates that MicroBalrog quoted. With a circle of ambiguity for any given shot that's measured in cities, pretty much any forward observation post has as much chance of being hit as any spot it can report on.
It'd end up feeling like this poor guy:
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwetasschronicles.com%2Farchives%2Fimages%2FTargetHolder.jpg&hash=333597ca7cc85abc1cae69b74a31d10c932522eb)
-BP
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I'd sure hate to be the forward observer for a battery that had the on-target rates that MicroBalrog quoted. With a circle of ambiguity for any given shot that's measured in cities, pretty much any forward observation post has as much chance of being hit as any spot it can report on.
It'd end up feeling like this poor guy:
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwetasschronicles.com%2Farchives%2Fimages%2FTargetHolder.jpg&hash=333597ca7cc85abc1cae69b74a31d10c932522eb)
-BP
Remember, they WANT to die. They think that if a rocket hits them as it kills Israelis, they'll go to paradise and get virgins.
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Why would you assume the bold face text?
Because the Army cut off Hamas' internal lines of communication? Because Gaza has no electricity or phones anymore?
They think that if a rocket hits them as it kills Israelis, they'll go to paradise and get virgins.
Under the Hadith, a righteous man who falls off his camel in peacetime gets virgins.
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Because the Army cut off Hamas' internal lines of communication? Because Gaza has no electricity or phones anymore?
You mean...the CELLPHONES?
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You mean...the CELLPHONES?
What cellphones? Provided by whom? With antennae powered by what?
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Remember, they WANT to die. They think that if a rocket hits them as it kills Israelis, they'll go to paradise and get virgins.
Yes, well. There is that.
Never understood the appeal, really. One was enough. Seventy two? Not so much.
-BP
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What cellphones? Provided by whom? With antennae powered by what?
Oh, you're kidding, right?
Good god, even the Somali fighters had cellphones they used to report American movements to the ambushers in Mogadishu. There's prepaid, paid for by foreign contacts, all sorts. Unless they kill all your towers, too, they've got a signal.
Powered? By car lighter plugs, by whatever?
The insurgents in Iraq have cellphones, too, and use them for everything from contacts to setting off IEDs by dialing the phone and letting the ring activate a relay.
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Good god, even the Somali fighters had cellphones they used to report American movements to the ambushers in Mogadishu. There's prepaid, paid for by foreign contacts, all sorts. Unless they kill all your towers, too, they've got a signal.
Mogadishu has one of the most extensive telecom network in Africa. There are huge economic reports about how they manage to have quality bandwidth in such a shithole. In the meanwhile Gaza has now reverted to the stone age. They have no cellphone towers, no power outside generators. The Army says they can't communicate. Now maybe you're right and they can.
But the ineptness of Palestinians is COSMIC. These are the people who fire AKs by holding them high over head and pointing them in the vague direction of the enemy.
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Mogadishu has one of the most extensive telecom network in Africa. There are huge economic reports about how they manage to have quality bandwidth in such a shithole. In the meanwhile Gaza has now reverted to the stone age. They have no cellphone towers, no power outside generators. The Army says they can't communicate. Now maybe you're right and they can.
But the ineptness of Palestinians is COSMIC. These are the people who fire AKs by holding them high over head and pointing them in the vague direction of the enemy.
You have cellphone towers, don't you? The towns in Israel a few miles from the border have cellphone towers, don't they?
Ever seen one of these?
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.alternativewireless.com%2Fcellular-antennas%2Fwilson-antennas%2FWilson_Cellular_Amplifiers_files%2Fdirect-connect-cell-phone-power-booster.jpg&hash=f90b8f8a90cfeb9d14eda74113c87673acf49d23)
They're made in China. You can buy them anywhere, including Iran, Egypt, anywhere.
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Mogadishu has one of the most extensive telecom network in Africa. There are huge economic reports about how they manage to have quality bandwidth in such a shithole. In the meanwhile Gaza has now reverted to the stone age. They have no cellphone towers, no power outside generators. The Army says they can't communicate. Now maybe you're right and they can.
But the ineptness of Palestinians is COSMIC. These are the people who fire AKs by holding them high over head and pointing them in the vague direction of the enemy.
Interesting.
I would be very hesitant to assume such ineptness on the part of an enemy, even if such ineptness is regularly displayed.
They could implement the remote FOs if they so desired. Cell phone, sat phone, two-way radio, whatever. As long as there is any small amount of fuel, they could get power for their commo device. That they have not done so is a blessing.
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I would be very hesitant to assume such ineptness on the part of an enemy, even if such ineptness is regularly displayed.
I have seen video of them firing the smaller rockets when I was in the Army.
This essentially involves setting up a rocket so it's poked in the vague direction of Israel, chanting ALLAH AQBAR a few times, and lighting it off from a safe distance.
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I have seen video of them firing the smaller rockets when I was in the Army.
This essentially involves setting up a rocket so it's poked in the vague direction of Israel, chanting ALLAH AQBAR a few times, and lighting it off from a safe distance.
Yep, but it only takes one to ruin your day......
NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER underestimate the your enemy. Assume the worst and plan accordingly.
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According to the UN and various NGOs, only about 25% of the Palestinian casualties are civlians. So the army seems to be doing a good job 'separating' them.
Well, if you were following the news here in the US (why the heck would you) You'd think you were slaughtering civillians left and right.
if the UN estimates the civilian causalities at 25%, they are probably closer to 15%-20%...
A former employee of my law firm who visited today that now works for the U.N. states that their having a hard time declaring what "civilians" are.
Males of fighting age have automatically been declared and counted as "combatants" in certain situations without corroberating evidence. I dont know how you can go around wildly second guessing when the U.N. with observers on the ground is having a hard time pinning down actual numbers. Are you posting from the Gaza Strip? Thats just arogant to assume.
In regards to the OP stay safe, its getting very dangerous over their.
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Yep, but it only takes one to ruin your day......
NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER underestimate the your enemy. Assume the worst and plan accordingly.
I do have a plan. It involves going down to the bomb shelter, which is rated to take direct hits from stuff far more serious than these rockets, when the alarm sounds. It does not involve living in the bomb shelter, like some crazier neighbors have taken to. It does not involve being scared to the point I give myself nightmares, as some people do. I'm taking things in proportion.
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the end times are nigh but does it amuse anyone else that folks from various places in the usa are attempting to hold forth in a discussion with a guy who is actually there? more amusing in that he served in the armed forces they are kibitzing about? in that i often harass mb over his making pronouncements about the usa i find myself tending to defer to his knowledge of the situation on his block.in spite of the fact that i need to make big adjustments to my world view in order to do so
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the end times are nigh but does it amuse anyone else that folks from various places in the usa are attempting to hold forth in a discussion with a guy who is actually there? more amusing in that he served in the armed forces they are kibitzing about? in that i often harass mb over his making pronouncements about the usa i find myself tending to defer to his knowledge of the situation on his block.in spite of the fact that i need to make big adjustments to my world view in order to do so
Eh. CS&D overestimates my knowledge of the events here. I have various ways of keeping myself informed of what goes on here, but I'm sure there are many people in this forum more knowledgeable about Middle-Eastern history than I am.
My aim here is only to provide the members of this forum with my anecdotal input - and of course, I will say about my own accounts the same thing I say about others' - the plural of anecdote does not equal data.
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Through multiple news sources I have followed for news in Israel the cell phone system is shot full of holes. Towers down and switch equipment bombed like broadcast towers. They may have sat phones and 2 ways.
Don't forget this place gets beat up regularly and the coms in place are newer than many places in the US. Cell and landline systems are built together and somewhat interchangeable.
For ending this situation they they will have to end Pal occupation and close Gaza. Pack the noncombatants to the westbank and those who fight get battle that ends with them.
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NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER underestimate the your enemy. Assume the worst and plan accordingly.
FWIW, over-estimating your enemy can be just as big of a mistake; when you over-estimate, you put more resources into your own preparations than you have to, and that means you use them up faster, potentially deplete them sooner, and eventually run out. Then you're in a bad place.
-BP
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Mind, the Israeli government prohibits publishing exact locations more accurate than the nearest city.
But if you live in Ashdod, rumours about the locations will... err, spread.
Does the gov't block the internet, cell communications, TV, etc? The terrs don't need to know which city they hit; they just need to replicate the strike that nearly hit a kindergarten. That's not hard to do at all.
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A former employee of my law firm who visited today that now works for the U.N. states that their having a hard time declaring what "civilians" are.
Males of fighting age have automatically been declared and counted as "combatants" in certain situations without corroberating evidence. I dont know how you can go around wildly second guessing when the U.N. with observers on the ground is having a hard time pinning down actual numbers. Are you posting from the Gaza Strip? Thats just arogant to assume.
He probably just recalls the "funeral" where bodies were paraded around and the mourners denounced Israel. When an Israeli drone flew overhead, the "decedents" jumped off and ran for cover. It was a pretty good video to watch.
Add in Hamas' tactic of staging and firing from occupied civilian houses (in order to instigate fire on the homes), the tactic of putting weapons installations and storage facilities in mosques and hospitals, and various sundry items, and it's easy to understand why the UN estimates are questionable. Recalling the incidents where Hezbollah used UN outposts and vehicles to launch attacks on Israel, and it gets even easier.
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They miss the CITIES they're aiming at 60% of the time.
10% of the time, they miss the COUNTRY they're aiming at.
Well then, it's a good thing they can't make up for their poor accuracy by firing a great number of shots at the same targets.
Oh, wait...
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Well then, it's a good thing they can't make up for their poor accuracy by firing a great number of shots at the same targets.
If they could have been firing more rockets, they would have. They can't. Our friends in the South have closed the Rafiah Passage, and right now the Army is busily applying some much-needed boot to ass.
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They fired some rockets at my town today and missed it.
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Yes, well. There is that.
Never understood the appeal, really. One was enough. Seventy two? Not so much.
-BP
Could be 72 Virgin guys just like them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFr4A-5J908 (Funny Ending)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFelEa8wAIk (about 4 minutes in)
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Multiple rockets fell in and around Ashdod today - the media say nothing hit within the city itself, but locals insist two rockets hit in certain industrial areas within the city.
Also, some losers have taken to adjusting their cellphone ringtones to sound like the air raid alarm.
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Also, some losers have taken to adjusting their cellphone ringtones to sound like the air raid alarm.
Something tells me that when the police or military discover this hilarity will ensue. Unless of course it's patently obvious that it's fake.
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Also, some losers have taken to adjusting their cellphone ringtones to sound like the air raid alarm.
A righteous smack to the side of the head does wonders...
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Moar rokkits!
Now not only in Ashdod - but also in the North. Apparently some splinter group is behind that.
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I've got an internet friend "in country" reporting that some rockets seem to have come from Lebanon.
Big deal or not so much?
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I've got an internet friend "in country" reporting that some rockets seem to have come from Lebanon.
Big deal or not so much?
Depending whom you ask. Apparently it was some minor splinter group who fired them. The question is if it evolves into something bigger.
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Something tells me that when the police or military discover this hilarity will ensue. Unless of course it's patently obvious that it's fake.
Well, you could do something like attach these balloons to your vehicle and drive around. I'm sure that'd cause a bit of amusement.
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg515.imageshack.us%2Fimg515%2F5048%2Fthescariestthingis2.jpg&hash=cac118910790c73a59e866de0e1cf10d3fdfe120)
Probably followed by a beating, but hey.
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Probably followed by a beating, but hey.
You don't need that to make MAGAV beat you.
They mistook family driving in their car for drug dealers once. Hilarity ensued..
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Mogadishu has one of the most extensive telecom network in Africa. There are huge economic reports about how they manage to have quality bandwidth in such a shithole. In the meanwhile Gaza has now reverted to the stone age. They have no cellphone towers, no power outside generators.
The Palestinians can get rockets but not commodity communications equipment like HAM radios? Most of them are modifiable to transmit over a huge range, making identifying communications rather difficult.
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The Palestinians can get rockets but not commodity communications equipment like HAM radios? Most of them are modifiable to transmit over a huge range, making identifying communications rather difficult.
I think the deal is that they won't get them or are not smart enough to get them and put them to use.
Which makes me wonder what sort of Darwinian pressures are going on inside Gaza these past few decades.
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I think the deal is that they won't get them or are not smart enough to get them and put them to use.
Which makes me wonder what sort of Darwinian pressures are going on inside Gaza these past few decades.
80% of these people can't read and write. Pardon me if I'm skeptical of their warfighting ability.
Conversely, they DO seem to be getting larger and larger rockets.
Apparently they have Fajr-5 now. The Army is holding air raid drills in my nephew's school in Tel-Aviv.
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At least the Palestinians don't need a rocketry bailout from our government like Flynt does.
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(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ynet.co.il%2FPicServer2%2F28102008%2F1781525%2Fw-030_wa.jpg&hash=a0db67bc20234b41bb707e32895b3b91326d4665)
This - also in my town.
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Another rocket fell here today - judging by the sound, rather close. The media reports it fell 'between a school and a kindergarten'.
The post offices adopted 'special hours' of work.
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Another rocket fell here today
Pretty soon you will be able to collect the whole set.
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Pretty soon you will be able to collect the whole set.
If you do, can you trade them in for a cruise missile to fire back?
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Joe the Plumber is givign your media weenies the media equivalent to a pipe wrench upside the head.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231424929024&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Joe the Plumber is here, and he ain't happy
Jan. 11, 2009
Shelly Paz , THE JERUSALEM POST
Samuel Wurzelbacher of Ohio, aka Joe the Plumber, arrived in Sderot at noon Sunday to show local and foreign reporters how to do it right.
"You should be ashamed of yourself," he told foreign reporters.
"You should be patriotic, protect your family and children, not report like you have been doing for the past two weeks since this war has started," he said.
Wurzelbacher, the man who stole the limelight from Republican presidential candidate John McCain during the American election campaign, has found a new job - as a correspondent for the Internet Web sites PJTV and Pajamas Media.
Armed with a camera and a temporary Government Press Office card, he got a taste of reality in Sderot, visiting a house hit by a Kassam rocket two weeks ago and experiencing a "Code Red" alert first-hand. He also observed and reported from the house where a Kassam landed on Sunday afternoon.
The people of Sderot "can't do normal things day to day," like get soap in their eyes in the shower, for fear a rocket might come in, Wurzelbacher said. "I'm sure they're taking quick showers. I know I would."
He also wondered why Israel waited so long to act. "I know if I were a citizen here, I'd be damned upset." He described himself as a "peaceloving man," but added, "when someone hits me, I'm going to unload on the boy. And if the rest of the world doesn't understand that, then I'm sorry."
Wurzelbacher had already announced that he would arrive in the area for 10 days to cover Operation Cast Lead and to assist in getting out the Israeli side of the story.
"I want the average American Joes to understand the story here from the point of view of someone like them," he told WNWO, a TV channel in his hometown of Toledo, Ohio, before heading here.
During the election campaign, Wurzelbacher (who supported McCain) warned Jewish voters in America that voting for President-elect Barack Obama would be a death blow to Israel, saying, "Obama has offered to sit down with the enemies of Israel."
But in Sderot, he seemed just as intent on teaching a thing or two to the media. "Do you think this is normal, the way you cover this conflict and give away information to your enemy?" he asked the journalists that gathered around him.
"It makes me sick to see the way you behave - you guys need to be protective of your homes, your children, your family."
"I am angry," he said, "and this is why I came here."
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I cannot stand Joe the Plumber.
Err, well, ok, I couldn't stand him. He's on his way to redeeming himself.
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So Joe the Unlicenced Plumber is now a reporter?
And he is berating imbeded war reporters? Oh yea can I berate rocket scientist for being dumb or doing their job incorrectly because I successfully set off a MkII Bottle Rocket successfully?
Joe thinks the media should ignore anything that doesn't portray Israel in a positive light, isn't the job of the media to get both sides of any giving story?
Cocky new reporter should go try interviewing some Palestinians, and spout off to them like that, it would be fun to see what happens.
Not bashing Israel in anyway, but when reporters purposely only report one side of a story isn't that just propaganda. It would be like Ariana Huffington went to Palestine and said Isreal is slaughtering Plastinians left and right and the poor Palestinians are just trying to defend themselves.
Both sides do horrible things, its a war. To ignore one side is to live blindly.
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Cocky new reporter should go try interviewing some Palestinians, and spout off to them like that, it would be fun to see what happens.
Hamas would probably behead him, because they're animalistic and evil savages. We already knew that.
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So Joe the Unlicenced Plumber is now a reporter?
And he is berating imbeded war reporters? Oh yea can I berate rocket scientist for being dumb or doing their job incorrectly because I successfully set off a MkII Bottle Rocket successfully?
Joe thinks the media should ignore anything that doesn't portray Israel in a positive light, isn't the job of the media to get both sides of any giving story?
Cocky new reporter should go try interviewing some Palestinians, and spout off to them like that, it would be fun to see what happens.
Not bashing Israel in anyway, but when reporters purposely only report one side of a story isn't that just propaganda. It would be like Ariana Huffington went to Palestine and said Isreal is slaughtering Plastinians left and right and the poor Palestinians are just trying to defend themselves.
Both sides do horrible things, its a war. To ignore one side is to live blindly.
90% of the coverage I've seen is of the "Oh, the poor Pali's.... Big Meanie Israel is beating up on them again...."
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As of today 911 Palestinians have died in the conflict so far as apposed to 13 Israelis.
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Perhaps they should think of that figure the next time they think lobbing a few rockets over is a good idea?
Not only is it wrong, it's a war they should know damn well they can't win.
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As of today 911 Palestinians have died in the conflict so far as apposed to 13 Israelis.
Then maybe the Palis should rethink firing rockets AT CIVILIAN AREAS ON PURPOSE from the roofs OF THEIR OWN OCCUPIED BUILDINGS.
Would you be happier if they were lobbing WMDs on those rockets? They would if they had them.
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As of today 911 Palestinians have died in the conflict so far as apposed to 13 Israelis.
As I cannot respond as well as Thomas Sowell, allow me to cite his current column:
http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/01/13/pretty_talk_and_ugly_realities
No phrase represents more of a triumph of hope over experience than the phrase "Middle East peace process." A close second might be the once-fashionable notion that Israel should "trade land for peace."
Since everybody seems to be criticizing Israel for its military response to the rockets being fired into their country from the Gaza strip, let me add my criticisms as well. The Israelis traded land for peace, but they have never gotten the peace, so they should take back the land.
Maybe a couple of generations of Palestinians in Gaza living in peace under Israeli occupation and a couple of generations of the occupation troops squelching the terrorists-- "militants" for those of you who are squeamish-- would set up conditions where the Palestinians would be free to vote on whether they would like to remain occupied or to have their own state-- minus terrorists and their rockets.
Casualty totals alone should be enough to show that the Palestinian people are the biggest losers from the current situation, where the terrorists among them, firing rockets into Israel, can bring devastating retaliatory strikes.
Why don't the Palestinians vote for some representatives who would make a lasting peace with Israel? Because any such candidates would be killed by the terrorists long before election day, so nobody volunteers for that dangerous role.
We don't know what the Palestinians really want-- and won't know as long as they are ruled by Hamas, Hezbollah and the like.
Whatever the benefits of peace for the Palestinian population, what are the terrorists going to do in peacetime? Become librarians and furniture salesmen?
So-called "world opinion" has been a largely negative factor in this situation. Nothing is easier than for people living in peace and safety in Paris or Rome to call for a "cease fire" after the Israelis retaliate against people who are firing rockets into their country.
The time to cease fire was before the rockets were fired.
What do calls for "cease fire" and "negotiations" do? They lower the price of launching attacks. This is true not only in the Middle East but in other parts of the world as well.
During the Vietnam war, when American clergymen were crying out "Stop the bombing!" they paid little attention to the fact that bombing pauses made it easier for North Vietnam to move more ammunition into South Vietnam to kill both South Vietnamese and Americans.
After Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, if British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had heeded calls for a "cease fire," that would have simply lowered the price to be paid by the Argentine government for their invasion.
Go back a hundred years-- before there was a United Nations and before "world opinion" was taken into account.
An Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands at that time would have risked not only a British counter-attack to retake the islands but also British attacks on Argentina itself.
Anywhere in the world, attacks such as those on Israel today would not only have risked retaliation but invasion and annihilation of the government that launched those attacks.
Today, so-called "world opinion" not only limits the price to be paid for aggression or terrorism, it has even led to the self-indulgence of third parties talking pretty talk about limiting the response of those who are attacked to what is "proportionate."
By this reasoning, we should not have declared war on Japan for bombing Pearl Harbor. We should have gone over to Japan, bombed one of their harbors-- and let it go at that.
Does anyone imagine that this would have led to Japan's becoming as peaceful today as it has become after Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Or is the real agenda to engage in moral preening from a safe distance and at somebody else's expense?
Those who think "negotiations" are a magic answer seem not to understand that when A wants to annihilate B, this is not an "issue" that can be resolved amicably around a conference table.
Essentially, we are creating incentives for violence and aggression by spouting "proportional response!"
If governments know when they attack another country, the world will not allow that country to unseat them and take their country, they have a much greater incentive to be aggressive.
By limiting the consequences, we encourage violence.
Brilliant.
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As of today 911 Palestinians have died in the conflict so far as apposed to 13 Israelis.
This is generally because the Army is winning this thing.
I'd rather prefer the Army win than lose, thank you very much.
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This is generally because the Army is winning this thing.
I'd rather prefer the Army win than lose, thank you very much.
There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change; it is, "To use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time." -Patton
“The quickest way to end a war is to lose it.” -George Orwell
Why do people keep forgetting that Hamas, by their own words, is genocidal?
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Why do people keep forgetting that Hamas, by their own words, is genocidal?
Oh, it's because they don't really MEAN that.
They just want a hug!
You can't hug people with nuclear weapons!
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Why do people keep forgetting that Hamas, by their own words, is genocidal?
Hamas abandoned the goal of destroying Israel two years ago.
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Hamas abandoned the goal of destroying Israel two years ago.
Really.
"As far as we're concerned, the issue of recognition of Israel has been settled once and for all. It has been settled in our political literature, in our Islamic thought and in our Jihadist culture, on which we base our moves. Recognition of Israel is out of the question. We have been advocating the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital and the return of the refugees. In exchange for all that, we will declare a truce, but no recognition of Israel."
Ismail Haniya, interview with Al-Jazeera, April 2, 2007
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Really.
Ismail Haniya, interview with Al-Jazeera, April 2, 2007
In exchange for all that, we will declare a truce, but no recognition of Israel.
This bit does not say "we will destroy Israel" btw.
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That's still rather short of two years.
Shall I find some more recent quotes to satisfy your strange and relentless defense of Hamas?
I guess their breaking the ceasefire and firing rockets at civilians wasn't "word" enough?
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That's still rather short of two years.
Shall I find some more recent quotes to satisfy your strange and relentless defense of Hamas?
Sorry, messed up the quote bit first time around.
As for my "strange and relentless defence of Hamas", its been nothing of the sort. My opposition to this is because (a) it is entirely self defeating in its aims, (b) the aims that Israel has publicly set itself are utterly impossible to achieve, and (c) the same Israeli government was widely seen as useless when it did almost exactly the same thing to Lebanon. Add to this the general insanity of a peace process where everyone refuses to deal with one of the democratically elected partners, and you come to the sad place we are at now.
edit: by the way, Hamas did not break the ceasefire. Israel did.
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Why is stopping the rocket fire 'utterly impossible' to achieve?
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Why is stopping the rocket fire 'utterly impossible' to achieve?
Because its not just Hamas firing rockets, its IJ and Fatah groups as well. Secondly the technology level of the rockets, and the mortars which also come over, are so low that it is not that hard for someone to hide some and then pop them off when the IDF declares victory. This is what Hezbollah did, after all.
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I'd like to know if anyone here but MicroBalrog know the history of Isreal and the Palestinian people because it is a far more complex conflict that people make in seem to be. Its not Hamas fires rocket, Isreal fires back at Hamas.
First let me address something.
As of today 911 Palestinians have died in the conflict so far as apposed to 13 Israelis.
Perhaps they should think of that figure the next time they think lobbing a few rockets over is a good idea?
Not only is it wrong, it's a war they should know damn well they can't win.
Then maybe the Palis should rethink firing rockets AT CIVILIAN AREAS ON PURPOSE from the roofs OF THEIR OWN OCCUPIED BUILDINGS.
Would you be happier if they were lobbing WMDs on those rockets? They would if they had them.
Hamas along with at least 2 other splinter terrorist groups are launching rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli civilians. So even if Hama declared and stuck to a cease fire (like a 1% chance of that) there would still be rocket attacks on Isreal.
Second Hamas doesnt give a damn about Palestinian civilians, in their sick demented view if they have to allow/cause every single man, woman, and child to die to distroy Isreal it would be worth it to them. They use tactics that directly place non combatants in harms way, goading IDF forces into firing on Palestinian civilians. Dont say its a war they know they cannot win, they think that "g0d" is on their side, you wouldn't belive what people will do or think when they think "g0d" is on their side.
My point is that 3 Israeli civilians have died during this recent conflict along with 10 IDF soliders opposed to the 911 Palestinians that died. Which is a ratio of 70 to 1 including the soliders but a ratio of 1/303.6 excluding the soliders. My question to the posters that are critical of me is what is an acceptable attrition rate? 1/90 , 1/100, 1/200? For every Israelis civilian that dies how many Palestinians would you deem acceptable to die? And for bonus points what is worse the Hamas terrorists that shoot faulty missles into Isreal everyday or the retaliatory strike that kills 5 Hamas terrorist and 45 civilians?
I cant answer that but if anyone else can be my guest.
Im damn glad Hamas doesn't have and WMD's, and pray the never get their hand on them but they dont have WMD's and its pointless to speculate "what if's".
Just and FYI Hamas is a LEGITIMATE part of the Palestinian government thanks to free democratic elections (sucks when democracy doesn't work the way we want) Hamas leaders have quite a few seats in their Parliment, and have gone about this by having a good P.R. campaign in Palestine.
They dont only bomb and mortar but they also set up field hospitals, distribute food & medical supplies, offer to educate Palestinian children in their Madrass's (sp?) which are religious schools meant to indoctrinate the next generation into their "holy war". I say this not to paint Hamas in a positive light but to shed light on the Palestinian people and why some of them support Hamas. For them it must seem as if they have no other choice, they live in abject poverty and to them Hamas is their Red Cross, the only orginization they think is trying to help then.
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And for bonus points what is worse the Hamas terrorists that shoot faulty missles into Isreal everyday or the retaliatory strike that kills 5 Hamas terrorist and 45 civilians?
But that is not the ratio. According to Hamas itself, 70% of those killed are combatants.
d. Which is a ratio of 70 to 1 including the soliders but a ratio of 1/303.6 excluding the soliders.
When the US Marines confront insurgents in Northern Iraq and inflict casualties on a 50-1 ratio, they are cheered as heroes as they properly should be because they're doing a proper good job.
When the military kills a lot of enmies and takes few casualties, that is a good thing. If I could so arrange for the military to take NO casualties, I would.
I agree with you that we should not indiscriminately exterminate civilians, but that's also no what we're doing.
They dont only bomb and mortar but they also set up field hospitals, distribute food & medical supplies, offer to educate Palestinian children in their Madrass's (sp?) which are religious schools meant to indoctrinate the next generation into their "holy war". I say this not to paint Hamas in a positive light but to shed light on the Palestinian people and why some of them support Hamas. For them it must seem as if they have no other choice, they live in abject poverty and to them Hamas is their Red Cross, the only orginization they think is trying to help then.
Oh quite.
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Excusing evil or limiting the response to evil because the evildoers are not particularly good at their evil acts is worthy of ridicule. Hamas and its supporters are reaping what they have sewn, and it is a bumper harvest.
Negotiating with a government because in some how or some way it is considered "legitimate" shows ignorance of the entire purpose of negotiation. Legitimacy has nothing to do with it. One engages in negotiations because one determines that it might be to one's advantage or further some goal.
In this particular case, negotiation for a truce was tried and failed, given the 6000+ rockets that were shot at Israel.
Now, the use of force comes to the fore, as negotiation has been fruitless and ignoring Hamas is no longer tolerable (politically or otherwise). In its attack on Hamas, Israel is using force to further some policy goal. They ought to continue until Hamas and the Gaza population is hurting enough to change their course of action to something more acceptable to Israel.
Gaza is a basket case propped up by the UNRWA, as UNRWA provides a majority or near-majority of the "GNP" of Gaza. It is a great, big welfare housing project that allows those who choose to, to spend their time shooting rockets at Israel rather than scrabbling for sustenance. The quickest way to resolve the Gaza problem would be to withdraw every penny of aid to Gaza, forcing the inhabitants to either earn their daily bread, go elsewhere to do so, or starve.
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From a video I was watching earlier. Results almost instantly following a bomb, but bombs don't do that.
Nitrocellulose rocket propellant, or fuel oil? I don't know combustion profiles that well.
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fvoanews.com%2Fenglish%2Fimages%2Fap_israel_gaza_airstrike_175_13Jan09.jpg&hash=4d6ea799ee1741839e367cbc667ab5f5f5a39c9d)
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Because its not just Hamas firing rockets, its IJ and Fatah groups as well. Secondly the technology level of the rockets, and the mortars which also come over, are so low that it is not that hard for someone to hide some and then pop them off when the IDF declares victory. This is what Hezbollah did, after all.
The use of ISR UAVs, counter-battery radar, and quick-reaction effectors like nearby arty & patrolling attack aircraft can nab the shooters fairly quickly. The Israelis are using an approach similar to that to kill rocket-tossers in the numbers we have seen and some deplore.
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The heroes of the IDF bravely take out an antenatal clinic. Deliberately!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7825215.stm
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The heroes of the IDF bravely take out an antenatal clinic. Deliberately!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7825215.stm
And Hamas is known to use Red Crescent ambulances to transport weapons.
What are you going to do next, celebrate St. Pancake here?
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The heroes of the IDF bravely take out an antenatal clinic. Deliberately!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7825215.stm
Better than by accident, given that the IDF believed the place was being used by Hamas, as was stated in the article.
If the heroes of Hamas would stop hiding behind women, children, and "antenatal" clinics; using hospitals as terrorist HQs; and using ambulances to transport both terrorists and ordnance; the IDF would have no cause to blow the crap outta such places. Given the evidence that Hamas does such things, they have forfeited the usual consideration.
Now, I am sure the IDF has horked up some fire missions, inadvertently or otherwise. Thing is, lacking the 600+ rockets Hamas tossed into Israel, NONE of these missions would have occurred.
BTW, how many 15-minute warnings did Hamas give before it shot each of the 6000+ rockets into Israel?
Here is a little bit of intel discovered by by the Israelis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI1q3etFX2k&eurl
And Hamas is known to use Red Crescent ambulances to transport weapons.
What are you going to do next, celebrate St. Pancake here?
My maple syrup has been given a warning order indicating it should prep for immediate IHOP Ops.
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Here are the wonderful Hamas goons at "work:"
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/sam-dealey/2009/1/13/hamas-steals-aid-from-palestinians-outrage-to-follow.html
The Israeli Defense Forces continue to face a good deal of heat from humanitarian groups such as Human Rights Watch, which say the military's tight cordon around Gaza City is taking a punishing toll on civilians who are in desperate need of humanitarian supplies.
Apparently Hamas, the terrorist "government" in Gaza, doesn't agree. As the Jerusalem Post reports:
Hamas on Monday raided some 100 aid trucks that Israel had allowed into Gaza, stole their contents and sold them to the highest bidders.
... Since the beginning of Operation Cast Lead, the IDF has facilitated the transfer of close to 900 trucks into the Gaza Strip with over 20,000 tons of basic food and medical supplies.
So Hamas loots 1 out of 9 aid trucks, not only stealing food and supplies from the mouths of its own people to fund more rockets but also jeopardizing Israel's inclination to allow future relief deliveries.
What are the chances that HRW, the United Nations, and other humanitarian organizations will now express the same outrage over relief access with Hamas that they showed with Israel? Far less than 1 in 9 is my guess.
Here is the whole of the j-post report:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231424932109&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter
Hamas raids aid trucks, sells supplies
Jan. 12, 2009
YAAKOV KATZ and JPost.com staff , THE JERUSALEM POST
Hamas on Monday raided some 100 aid trucks that Israel had allowed into Gaza, stole their contents and sold them to the highest bidders.
The IDF said that since terminal activity is coordinated with UNRWA and the Red Cross, Israel could do nothing to prevent such raids, Israel Radio reported.
Between 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., the army had ceased all military activity in Gaza and once again established a "humanitarian corridor" to help facilitate the transfer of the supplies.
The Kerem Shalom and Karni crossings had been opened to allow in the aid trucks.
Security officials at Kerem Shalom thwarted an attempt to smuggle electrical goods, disguised as humanitarian supplies, into Gaza. The electrical goods included computers, infra-red cameras, ovens, microwaves and other electronic equipment.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak has forbidden the entry of electronics to Gaza since the goods do not fall under the category of humanitarian aid. Some electronic equipment has been let in as per an official Palestinian request, such as equipment used to repair the damaged electrical grid in Gaza.
Meanwhile, Israel is considering establishing a field hospital in the Gaza Strip to treat Palestinian civilians wounded in fighting between the IDF and Hamas.
The plan would be to establish the field hospital outside the Gaza Strip, but the IDF is also considering the possibility of erecting the hospital inside the Palestinian territory so it will be more accessible to the Palestinian population. It would be run by the IDF Medical Corps.
Also Monday, in an effort to promote Israeli humanitarian efforts in the Gaza Strip, the Defense Ministry launched a new Web site that provides a live video feed of the Kerem Shalom cargo crossing, through which international organizations have been transferring basic foods and medical supplies to Gaza.
The footage can be viewed here.
Since the beginning of Operation Cast Lead, the IDF has facilitated the transfer of close to 900 trucks into the Gaza Strip with over 20,000 tons of basic foods and medical supplies.
According to an army estimate on Monday, slightly over 900 Palestinians have been killed since Operation Cast Lead began in December 2008. Based on intelligence and information obtained by the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration, the IDF has determined that at least 400 of those killed are known Hamas operatives. The IDF further believes that among the remaining 500, a significant number are also Hamas operatives.
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Oh for a non-IDF source to that "news", jfruser - one of the reasons why HRW, UNRWA and the rest of the humanitarian agencies arent complaining about Hamas raiding the trucks could be because it is not happening.
Oh, and if you had bothered to read that BBC article, you would have noticed that the clinic was not being used by Hamas. The IDF claimed that there was "terrorist operations" nearby.
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Oh for a non-IDF source to that "news", jfruser - one of the reasons why HRW, UNRWA and the rest of the humanitarian agencies arent complaining about Hamas raiding the trucks could be because it is not happening.
Yep, them Joos are wily and not to be trusted. OTOH, Hamas and their propaganda arm, the BBC, are assumed accurate until proved false.
And the 99.5% Pali UNRWA is the very soul of objectivity and would not slant its reports, no siree.
Oh, and if you had bothered to read that BBC article, you would have noticed that the clinic was not being used by Hamas. The IDF claimed that there was "terrorist operations" nearby.
Yes, I read the article. "Nearby" in Gaza City pretty much means the alley. Take a gander in google maps.
Have you given any thought that the IDF could have been
1. Targeting the "nearby" Hamas terrorists rather than the milk factory clinic
2. The clinic was inside the CEP of munitions used by the IDF
3. The IDF sought to avoid casualties by warning those inside the clinic to skedaddle
Of course, all this assumes the Pali propaganda machine is 100% truthful in its reporting on the matter. If it is not, and the terrorists were putting the clinic proper to use in some way, it is free game.
Nah, lets just assume the Joos get a kick out of blasting clinics.
Oh, BTW, how many 15 minute warnings given by Hamas have you been able to track down? There are 6000+ opportunities to have given one such warning.
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Hurrah! Lets respond to any questioning of the IDF narrative with attacks on everyone else (suggesting a frankly bizarre "everyone else is out to get us" tinfoilery), and vague allegations of anti-semitism.
As for Hamas warnings, I dont think they have ever given any - but then given the lack of accuracy of the rockets, it would be difficult for them to do this.
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Hurrah! Lets respond to any questioning of the IDF narrative with attacks on everyone else (suggesting a frankly bizarre "everyone else is out to get us" tinfoilery), and vague allegations of anti-semitism.
I am sorry if my allegations of anti-semitism were vague.
"Hamas exhibits no shame at using anti-semitism early & often." <---Is that clear enough?
Well, considering I am not one of the "us" you mention (being neither Israeli nor Jewish), I'll discount your commentary about tinfoilery.
In the case of the article in question, there is no IDF narrative. It is wholly sourced from a http://www.christianaid.org.uk news release. What the BBC has done is not journalism and is more akin to stenography. Your tax dollars at "work."
BBC and other institutions conquered by the left have a bias against liberal* governments when they clash with totalitarians and savages. We saw it in the Cold War, we see it in the clash with militant Islam. BTDT, have neither forgotten nor forgiven.
If you think you are going to get unbiased data from UNRWA or other organizations whose very existence depends on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict continuing in perpetuity, I would suggest you ought to re-read some of Max Weber's works.
Also, I am not blind to the fact that the IDF is trying to influence the perception of this conflict.
As for Hamas warnings, I dont think they have ever given any - but then given the lack of accuracy of the rockets, it would be difficult for them to do this.
Well, I sure wouldn't want to put terrorists who deliberately target civilians at any difficulty!
* Liberal as in treat their people with a some decency and have an understanding as to the limits of gov't powers.
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A remarkable jfruser post that, possibly the first on this thread to contain a grain of truth:
Also, I am not blind to the fact that the IDF is trying to influence the perception of this conflict.
zomg!
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As for Hamas warnings, I dont think they have ever given any - but then given the lack of accuracy of the rockets, it would be difficult for them to do this.
If Hamas had accurate, guided missiles, what do you think they would target? And do you believe they would give warnings of any kind?
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...and ANOTHER rocket just fell here. Apparently a community center was narrowly missed.
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...and ANOTHER rocket just fell here. Apparently a community center was narrowly missed.
Dammit. Stay safe. :P
Hopefully whoever it is that's got your range will get nailed soon.
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If Hamas had accurate, guided missiles, what do you think they would target? And do you believe they would give warnings of any kind?
military installations, and no.
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military installations, and no.
Please tell me you're not that naive. Who do their suicide bombers target? Cafes are military installations?
What reality are you living in?
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Please tell me you're not that naive. Who do their suicide bombers target? Cafes are military installations?
What reality are you living in?
Suicide bombers were able to get into military installations, were they?
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Suicide bombers were able to get into military installations, were they?
Right, they only targeted civilians because they couldn't get to anything better. ;/
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Suicide bombers were able to get into military installations, were they?
Yes, several times. They also could blow themselves up at the entrances to said installations, which, if done properly, would kill dozens of people as they filter in for duty.
Strangely this was rarely the chosen tactic.
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Suicide bombers were able to get into military installations, were they?
So then you are fine with targeting civilians because they can't reach a harder target?
Yet you whine a few civilians get killed because their elected government hides behind them?
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So then you are fine with targeting civilians because they can't reach a harder target?
Yet you whine a few civilians get killed because their elected government hides behind them?
Did I say that I was fine with them doing that?
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Don't see you doing anything but defending them
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Don't see you doing anything but defending them
And likewise. That's all I see.
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Don't see you doing anything but defending them
Then you need to practice reading more.
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really?
Where have you condemned Hamas in this thread? Rather then defending or making excuses for them?
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really?
Where have you condemned Hamas in this thread? Rather then defending or making excuses for them?
I have not condemned Hamas on this thread, but then that wasnt what you claimed. Most of my posts here or on the other thread have been to point out either stuff that is blatantly wrong, or which has been fabricated.
This of course translates to "defending or making excuses for them" in the bizarre language of some here, the mini-Joe the Posters.
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I have not condemned Hamas on this thread, but then that wasnt what you claimed. Most of my posts here or on the other thread have been to point out either stuff that is blatantly wrong, or which has been fabricated.
This of course translates to "defending or making excuses for them" in the bizarre language of some here, the mini-Joe the Posters.
You sure as hell have been condemning the Israelis!
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You sure as hell have been condemning the Israelis!
No, I have been condemning their actions. Deliberately bombing an antenatal clinic because some terrorists were nearby is worthy of condemnation.
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I have not condemned Hamas on this thread, but then that wasnt what you claimed. Most of my posts here or on the other thread have been to point out either stuff that is blatantly wrong, or which has been fabricated.
This of course translates to "defending or making excuses for them" in the bizarre language of some here, the mini-Joe the Posters.
By all means, set the record strait and correct me.
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No, I have been condemning their actions. Deliberately bombing an antenatal clinic because some terrorists were nearby is worthy of condemnation.
And Hamas deliberately firing rockets at civilian centers is not?
How about Hamas using the Palis as human shields?
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really?
Where have you condemned Hamas in this thread? Rather then defending or making excuses for them?
Give him a break, he's been using Invisifont for his condemnations of Hamas.
Same font I use for 1/4 of the content of all my posts here at APS. See, all my posts are actually 25% wittier than they appear, I just tone them down by using Invisifont.
Without Invisifont, I would finally rate as a 5/8ths wit in the eyes of the APS-reading world.
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And Hamas deliberately firing rockets at civilian centers is not?
How about Hamas using the Palis as human shields?
i) Its wrong, but given what the other side is doing there is some justification for it;
ii) the IDF has been as guilty as Hamas has been of using Palestinians as human shields.
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Okay, everyone. Take note of what Agricola just said.
I said:
And Hamas deliberately firing rockets at civilian centers is not?
How about Hamas using the Palis as human shields?
And he said:
i) Its wrong, but given what the other side is doing there is some justification for it;
ii) the IDF has been as guilty as Hamas has been of using Palestinians as human shields.
...and the second part? Well, that's just a lie. I have no idea where that came from. I don't see any IDF sorts hiding behind children to fight.
You just wrote my opinion of you in stone, guy. And it is now VERY, VERY low.
Firing rockets at civilians on purpose, a war crime by Geneva, deliberate in every way....has some justification.
You just said it. Respect, zero. :mad:
I really am honestly shocked and dismayed. Here MB's town is getting hit with rockets, his family could be killed, and there's "justification".
What the hell ever. You'll get no respect at all from me ever again after that.
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Okay, everyone. Take note of what Agricola just said.
I said:
And he said:
You just wrote my opinion of you in stone, guy. And it is now VERY, VERY low.
Firing rockets at civilians on purpose, a war crime by Geneva, deliberate in every way....has some justification.
You just said it.
Respect, zero. :mad:
Please get down from your moral high horse. Didnt you suggest that the Strip be carpet bombed? Havent you been cheerleading this whole insanity? The IDF killed more innocent people in one raid during this offensive than all these rockets have killed in every incident in the last ten years.
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attacking targets that may happen to have civilians, is justified. They made it a target when they set up shop and used it as a military base. It's sad, but they made it into a target by doing so. It's no longer a clinic once it becomes a military base, it's a military base that happens to have a clinic.
Lobbing rockets deliberately into civilians, with civilians as the target, is not justified. Except apparently by you.
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Agricola, another poster to fall victim to the 'if you don't condemn it in every other sentence you must support it' mentality.
There should be some Godwin-esque rule about that.
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attacking targets that may happen to have civilians, is justified. They made it a target when they set up shop and used it as a military base. It's sad, but they made it into a target by doing so. It's no longer a clinic once it becomes a military base, it's a military base that happens to have a clinic.
Lobbing rockets deliberately into civilians, with civilians as the target, is not justified. Except apparently by you.
i) They did not turn the antenatal clinic into a military base, as has been repeatedly stated. The IDF said there were terrorist operations nearby. Because of this, they took out an antenatal clinic.
ii) When the IDF does it, it is to be expected that Hamas will probably do it in return. That is what is meant by some justification.
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Here's how I see this whole thing. Hamas has the right to not want Israel to exist. Hell, if they really want, Hamas has the right to lob crappy little rockets at Israel. I'll give them that, sure. Okay, so Israel stole some land from the Palestinians, and the Palestinians are pissed. So lob your rockets. BUT!!! Don't forget now, Israel is a sovereign nation, recognized by pretty much everyone else in the world. Yeah, they might not be the nicest guys in the world, but they ARE a sovereign nation*. So when you go lobbing your crappy little rockets into that sovereign nation, you can't be pissed off when that technologically superior country rains down everliving HELL on you.
Yes, the loss of civilian life sucks. It really, really sucks. I can't even imagine being a kid in Gaza right now. You want to talk about some PTSD, you got a bunch of little freedom fighters there. However, I cannot blame Israel for most of the civilian deaths. They've screwed up a few times though. Most of the civilian deaths though, I blame on Hamas, because they are fighting a PR war, they are trying to get their civilians killed, just like Hezbollah in Lebanon. Can you give me another way of waging a war, without killing civilians, when the enemy launches a few rockets from their backyard, and then goes in and has dinner with the family? This is silly. What if Native Americans all of a sudden got pissed about all of the land we took from them, and decide to start launching rockets at cities near reservations? How do you think the .gov would respond?
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5xVRXLgLxw
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OK, maybe I was wrong about agricola using Invisifont to express his disgust with Hamas's deliberate targeting of civilians.
I do try to think the best of folk, sap that I am.
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Agricola, another poster to fall victim to the 'if you don't condemn it in every other sentence you must support it' mentality.
There should be some Godwin-esque rule about that.
i) Its wrong, but given what the other side is doing there is some justification for it;
ii) the IDF has been as guilty as Hamas has been of using Palestinians as human shields.
Yeah, how could anyone get the idea he supports or apologizes for them?
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Yeah, how could anyone get the idea he supports or apologizes for them?
Oh to be on the right side of an argument like this, where hundreds and hundreds of civilian deaths are trumped by someone NOT CONDEMNING HAMAS.
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Oh to be on the right side of an argument like this, where hundreds and hundreds of civilian deaths are trumped by someone NOT CONDEMNING HAMAS.
It's not that people are ignoring the civilian deaths.
It's that you are placing the blame on Israel for their deaths, not on Hamas who is using the civilians in order to garner support from those unable or unwilling to blame what they perceive to be the "oppressed."
It is said that some civilians have perished. I place the blame on those who provoke a country into defending itself AND hide amongst these civilians for propaganda victories.
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It's not that people are ignoring the civilian deaths.
It's that you are placing the blame on Israel for their deaths, not on Hamas who is using the civilians in order to garner support from those unable or unwilling to blame what they perceive to be the "oppressed."
It is said that some civilians have perished. I place the blame on those who provoke a country into defending itself AND hide amongst these civilians for propaganda victories.
Ah, its not the people who are dropping the bombs who are to blame. Hamas MADE them do it.
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Ah, its not the people who are dropping the bombs who are to blame. Hamas MADE them do it.
Let's say I come up and start punching you. Let's say I suck at fighting so I hit you in the arm, then the hand, then the knee.
You ignore it for a while, but, finally, you swing back; I dodge and you punch and old lady in the face.
Everyone labels you a coward who beats up old women.
All your fault for throwing that punch.
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Let's say I come up and start punching you. Let's say I suck at fighting so I hit you in the arm, then the hand, then the knee.
You ignore it for a while, but, finally, you swing back; I dodge and you punch and old lady in the face.
Everyone labels you a coward who beats up old women.
All your fault for throwing that punch.
I think youll find its I swear at you after you beat me up, kill my wife, maim my kids and then imprison whats left of my family in a sandpit near your home. For me swearing at you, you with due solemnity and every concern for the innocents involved, blow up the sandpit.
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I think youll find its I swear at you after you beat me up, kill my wife, maim my kids and then imprison whats left of my family in a sandpit near your home. For me swearing at you, you with due solemnity and every concern for the innocents involved, blow up the sandpit.
I'm sorry, DELIBERATELY targeting civilians is slightly more than "swearing"
The fact that their tactics and their technology sucks should have no bearing on an act of war.
It is sad that the people of Gaza are suffering under their government.
It is also sad that their government is so hostile to its neighbors that those neighbors want to prevent those malefactors from gaining better technology for the slaughter of their civilians.
Maybe Isreal should just let Hamas get some BIG missiles so you'll finally think Israel is justified in attacking Gaza after Tel Aviv is gone.
Somehow, I doubt there would be support still.
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Ah, its not the people who are dropping the bombs who are to blame. Hamas MADE them do it.
Yes, we know that part.
I think youll find its I swear at you after you beat me up, kill my wife, maim my kids and then imprison whats left of my family in a sandpit near your home. For me swearing at you, you with due solemnity and every concern for the innocents involved, blow up the sandpit.
Huh? They shot rockets. Big rockets. Rockets that do this little thing call boom (ok...more then occasionally they fail to go boom) in civilian areas, deliberately, with the intent to kill civilians.
That is not the same as swearing at someone who proceeds to beat the snot out of you.
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Excusing evil or limiting the response to evil because the evildoers are not particularly good at their evil acts is worthy of ridicule.
I belive in an appropriate sized responce to an attack, not a full scale invasion if 3 civillians are killed.
Negotiating with a government because in some how or some way it is considered "legitimate" shows ignorance of the entire purpose of negotiation.
I think you might be ignorant of the concept of negotiation.
Definition: Negotiation is a dialogue intended to resolve disputes, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, or to craft outcomes to satisfy various interests. It is the primary method of alternative dispute resolution.
Ok explain why negotiating with a legitimate government shows ignorance, IMO it just looks stuborn when you refuse to negotiate. And theres no need for the "" around legitimate, Hamas won 76/132 seats in Parliment thanks to Democratic elections. That's akin to denying Obama is now our legitimate President because he's a radical lefty or whatever.
The quickest way to resolve the Gaza problem would be to withdraw every penny of aid to Gaza, forcing the inhabitants to either earn their daily bread, go elsewhere to do so, or starve.
Great your just a moral as Hamas! You would rather see millions of people starve to death, because of the actions of a few radicals, so that a one more Israli wont be killed. Thats not genocide, or what Hamas would do in the inverse.
The heroes of the IDF bravely take out an antenatal clinic. Deliberately!
No need for sarcasim, but he does bring up a point.
And Hamas is known to use Red Crescent ambulances to transport weapons.
So what is the point, bomb all Red Crescent ambulances?
If the heroes of Hamas would stop hiding behind women, children, and "antenatal" clinics; using hospitals as terrorist HQs; and using ambulances to transport both terrorists and ordnance; the IDF would have no cause to blow the crap outta such places. Given the evidence that Hamas does such things, they have forfeited the usual consideration.
Ok so your enemy is a war criminal so does that means you must stoop to his level and start bombing Hospitals, Ambulances, and U.N. Compounds? (The UN thing happened today) No. That just makes you a war criminal too, just because your enemy does dispicable things does not give you a pass to do so. Oh and their is no "forfeited the usual consideration" claus in the Geneva Convention if someone else violates the Conventions, and dont tell me Hamas in not a signitor, I know that already but Isreal is and it is bound to abide by the Treaty in respects to civilians. Which makes it illegal to target hospitals.
Let me say this again, because it seems alot of posters didnt read it the first time. Hamas gets Palestinian civilians killed on purpose.
Hamas likes to use civilian casulties in their P.R. war across the Middle East, "Oh Isreal killed another 30 civilians today their murdering us, Iran send us some AK's and mortars please!" and ya know what, Isreal plays right into their hand.
Terrorist storm civilians house, Fires at IDF troops in Gaza (Why they shouldnt be their and this should only be an air war with limited ground engagements.) IDF troops return fire, kills terrorist but in the process kills a 6 civilians, two being children and now Hamas has won a P.R. victory. They can say Isreal kills women and children and appeal for aid from other Middle East countries hostile with Isreal.
Really think about this for a second, If you were engaging a hostile force in an Urban environment would you fire at them from your house?! NO! You would run in someone elses house and shoot from their so they dont know where you live.
According to Hamas itself, 70% of those killed are combatants.
Some 1,100 Palestinians have been killed, roughly half of them civilians, according to U.N. and Palestinian medical officials. Thirteen Israelis also have died.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090115/D95NIRBG0.html
Micro, If you could cite your source that would be great, because at the moment it doesn't look like 70% of those killed are combatants.
Shelled a UN Compound that was being used a a refugee center for Palestinian civilians.
U.N. spokesmen confirmed that at least three people were wounded but said the fire and smoke engulfing the compound made it impossible to know if it had been completely evacuated.
U.N. spokesman Adnan Abu Hasna said the U.N. had given Israel the coordinates of the building and the compound was also clearly marked with U.N. flags and logos. Large stocks of food and fuel used to supply hospital and water pumps were at risk of destruction, as were valuable U.N. archives dating back to 1948, Abu Hasna said.
IDF Forces also hit a hospital and civilain buildings with no explination in the news article.
Three shells hit the Al Quds hospital in the neighborhood, setting its pharmacy building ablaze, trapping about 400 patients and staff inside the main hospital building, said Khaled Abu Zeid, a medic inside the building reached on his mobile phone.
In the nearby downtown area, Israeli tanks fired shells at five high-rise buildings, Palestinian witnesses said.
Remeber what I said in my previous post about at least two other splinter terrorist groups also firing rockets and mortars into Isreal.
Israel says it will press ahead with the campaign until it receives guarantees of a complete halt to rocket fire and an end to weapons smuggling into Gaza from neighboring Egypt.
In Damascus, Hamas deputy chief Moussa Abou Marzouk told Al-Arabiya television that Hamas demands an immediate cease-fire, to be followed by Israeli troop withdrawal and the opening of the border for humanitarian aid.
Ok great the Isrealis want the impossible and wont stop until Hamas stops, and Hamas wont stop until they stop. Great they both sound like children and how are the Palestinians supposed to stop smuggling tunnles starting in Egypt?
When the US Marines confront insurgents in Northern Iraq and inflict casualties on a 50-1 ratio, they are cheered as heroes as they properly should be because they're doing a proper good job.
When the military kills a lot of enmies and takes few casualties, that is a good thing. If I could so arrange for the military to take NO casualties, I would.
I agree with you that we should not indiscriminately exterminate civilians, but that's also no what we're doing.
I agree with you about the kill ratio in relation to military units and that if no IDF solider had to lose their life and could score all hostile kills that would be magnificent. But I was talking in about Israeli civilian casualties relation to Palestinian civilian casualties. The article I quoted stated that about 50% of all Palestinian deaths where civilian, there were 1,100 death but lets just say that only 500 were civilians. Three Israeli civilians died, is what sparked this off offensive, now compared to the Palestinian civilians deaths that 166.66 Palestinian civilians killed for every 1 Israeli civilian killed.
Note: I did not count the 10 IDF solider deaths, because they theoretically wouldnt have happened had this offensive not been lauched.
I never meant to insinuate that Isreal is indiscriminately exterminating civilians but at the same time it doesn't seem like your doing a good job distinguishing the between combatants and non combatants.
Now is my questions, Is it worth it.
How many Palestinian civilians are acceptable to die for every Israeli civilian killed?
Or how many Palestinian civilians are acceptable to die for every Hamas terrorist killed?
These recent events havn't portrayed Isreal's military in a positive light.
They dont only bomb and mortar but they also set up field hospitals, distribute food & medical supplies, offer to educate Palestinian children in their Madrass's (sp?) which are religious schools meant to indoctrinate the next generation into their "holy war". I say this not to paint Hamas in a positive light but to shed light on the Palestinian people and why some of them support Hamas. For them it must seem as if they have no other choice, they live in abject poverty and to them Hamas is their Red Cross, the only orginization they think is trying to help then.
Oh quite.
I dont know why you told me to quite, I would like you to elaborate on that comment and just to help cite my assertions heres a exerpt from Wiki
The group devotes much of its estimated $70 million annual budget to an extensive social services network, running many relief and education programs, and funds schools, orphanages, mosques, healthcare clinics, soup kitchens, and sports leagues. According to the Israeli scholar Reuven Paz "approximately 90 percent of the organization's work is in social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities".
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I never meant to insinuate that Isreal is indiscriminately exterminating civilians but at the same time it doesn't seem like your doing a good job distinguishing the between combatants and non combatants.
If your enemy is interposing their civilians between themselves and the people whom they are attacking, why do you blame the country responding to their attacks?
It seems those of you who want no civilians deaths are suggesting that Israel should go into Gaza, take over it's government and police the country and catch only those who are directly responsible for these actions.
Israel is not a police force. The government of Gaza is committing ACTS OF WAR. Israel has no responsibility to go in and catch the perpertrators and try them for a crime. The respond to acts of war with WAR.
If the costs of this war are too high, why don't the Gazans STOP FIRING MISSILES INTO ISRAEL?
I leave you with a quote from Sir Winston Churchill:
"Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves."
It seems too many people in the modern world don't get this.
And I think the U.S. may reach such a position since we seem to be unwilling to fight when "our victory will be sure and not too costly"
I guess history is easily forgotten. (Or ignored)
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If your enemy is interposing their civilians between themselves and the people whom they are attacking, why do you blame the country responding to their attacks?
Because Hamas are doing what every terror group - including the pre-Israeli Jewish groups - have done. This is what terrorist groups do. It does not give those fighting the group carte blanche to bomb the civilians anyway.
It seems those of you who want no civilians deaths are suggesting that Israel should go into Gaza, take over it's government and police the country and catch only those who are directly responsible for these actions.
No. What I am suggesting is that we in the West respect the democratic decision of the Palestinian people and engage with Hamas diplomatically. We have emphatically failed to do this.
Israel is not a police force. The government of Gaza is committing ACTS OF WAR. Israel has no responsibility to go in and catch the perpertrators and try them for a crime. The respond to acts of war with WAR.
The acts of war in this case were perpetrated by the Israelis against the Palestinians, specifically Hamas. Israel and Hamas, with Egyptian help, gained a six month ceasefire with the aim of culling the rocket fire and lifting the blockade. Just after this ceasefire started, Islamic Jihad and Fatah fired several rockets from Gaza, in response to the Israelis killing one of their men in the West Bank. Israel told Hamas to stop the rockets, which to a large part they were able to do. Despite this, the blockade was not lifted and the Israelis did raid the Strip in November, killing Hamas members. Hamas responded with rockets, and the situation deteriorated to the current sad state.
If the costs of this war are too high, why don't the Gazans STOP FIRING MISSILES INTO ISRAEL?
Because that is the only weapon, in fact the only diplomatic tactic, open to Hamas. If you refuse to engage with them, refuse to respect the result of their elections, and refuse to recognize any non-violent measures they take then you leave them with very little options but to use violent methods against you.
I leave you with a quote from Sir Winston Churchill:
"Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves."
It seems too many people in the modern world don't get this.
Churchill was fighting one of the two worst regimes ever to exist, a state that took the rest of the world on for the best part of three years and which required millions of deaths to stop it. Hamas have about the same military power as one half of one He-111's bombload, without the He-111 to get it anywhere useful.
And I think the U.S. may reach such a position since we seem to be unwilling to fight when "our victory will be sure and not too costly"
I guess history is easily forgotten. (Or ignored)
No, I think you will fool yourselves into thinking Islamic fundamentalism is anything other than the sideshow it is.
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jfruser:
Excusing evil or limiting the response to evil because the evildoers are not particularly good at their evil acts is worthy of ridicule.
Seenterman:
I belive in an appropriate sized responce to an attack, not a full scale invasion if 3 civillians are killed.
jfruser:
Well, when you are attacked by a knife-wielding criminal assailant, feel free to limit yourself to a knife. I, OTOH, will draw a firearm (if practicable) and shoot until the knife-wielder is no longer a threat.
Proportionality in a life or death struggle is for fools.
jfruser:
Negotiating with a government because in some how or some way it is considered "legitimate" shows ignorance of the entire purpose of negotiation.
Seenterman:
I think you might be ignorant of the concept of negotiation.
Definition: Negotiation is a dialogue intended to resolve disputes, to produce an agreement upon courses of action, to bargain for individual or collective advantage, or to craft outcomes to satisfy various interests. It is the primary method of alternative dispute resolution.
Ok explain why negotiating with a legitimate government shows ignorance, IMO it just looks stuborn when you refuse to negotiate. And theres no need for the "" around legitimate, Hamas won 76/132 seats in Parliment thanks to Democratic elections. That's akin to denying Obama is now our legitimate President because he's a radical lefty or whatever.
jfruser:
Might want to quote me in full:
Negotiating with a government because in some how or some way it is considered "legitimate" shows ignorance of the entire purpose of negotiation. Legitimacy has nothing to do with it. One engages in negotiations because one determines that it might be to one's advantage or further some goal.
In this particular case, negotiation for a truce was tried and failed, given the 6000+ rockets that were shot at Israel.
Now, the use of force comes to the fore, as negotiation has been fruitless and ignoring Hamas is no longer tolerable (politically or otherwise). In its attack on Hamas, Israel is using force to further some policy goal. They ought to continue until Hamas and the Gaza population is hurting enough to change their course of action to something more acceptable to Israel.
I am very comfortable with my understanding of negotiation, especially since your chosen defiition echoes what I wrote.
Legitimacy is, for the most part, irrelevant. If the "legitimate" gov't can not deliver or has nothing to offer, there is no use wasting one's time negotiating with them. Might as well negotiate with a "legitimate" Yorkshire Terrier, for all the good it will do you.
jfruser:
The quickest way to resolve the Gaza problem would be to withdraw every penny of aid to Gaza, forcing the inhabitants to either earn their daily bread, go elsewhere to do so, or starve.
Seenterman:
Great your just a moral as Hamas! You would rather see millions of people starve to death, because of the actions of a few radicals, so that a one more Israli wont be killed. Thats not genocide, or what Hamas would do in the inverse.
jfruser:
No, I am much more moral than Hamas (or UNRWA, or any other org that tosses tax dollars at Gaza), thank you very much.
The Palis in Gaza have no moral claim on the fruit of anyone else's labor. EU countries and the USA provide roughly 90% of the aid that goes into Gaza. Those monies are tax monies, taken from taxpayers (ultimately) by threat of violence.
That aid money is the only thing that allows the Palis in Gaza to stay in place and waste their lives. It would be a kindness to stop that cash akin to forcing multi-generational welfare moochers off the welfare rolls and forcing them to provide for temselves. Also, working 18 hours a day to keep the wolf from the door leaves very little time to spend on murderous plans for your neighbor.
Stop the monies. Get them off the dole. Make them earn their way in the world, even if they have to displace to do it. Welcome to the 21st century and adult responsibilities.
jfruser:
If the heroes of Hamas would stop hiding behind women, children, and "antenatal" clinics; using hospitals as terrorist HQs; and using ambulances to transport both terrorists and ordnance; the IDF would have no cause to blow the crap outta such places. Given the evidence that Hamas does such things, they have forfeited the usual consideration.
Seenterman:
Ok so your enemy is a war criminal so does that means you must stoop to his level and start bombing Hospitals, Ambulances, and U.N. Compounds? (The UN thing happened today) No. That just makes you a war criminal too, just because your enemy does dispicable things does not give you a pass to do so. Oh and their is no "forfeited the usual consideration" claus in the Geneva Convention if someone else violates the Conventions, and dont tell me Hamas in not a signitor, I know that already but Isreal is and it is bound to abide by the Treaty in respects to civilians. Which makes it illegal to target hospitals.
jfruser:
You have no understanding of the Laws of War or the various agreements. Zilch, bupkis, nada. Reading your response is not just unhelpful, it actually destroys understanding with mis/disinformation. The question then becomes, "Does Seenterman sew mis/disinformation out of ignorance or malevolence?"
FWIW, the criminal act is using the agreed-upon no-go artifacts for war: hospitals, religious sites, school buses full of hemophiliac nuns, etc. Such acts are called out in the various conventions as illegal acts and are part of the definition of what constitutes and unlawful combatant.
Once they are used for war, they are legitimate targets. Even the bus full of hemophiliac nuns. There is no "home base" where from attacks can be made with impunity.
Oh, do bust out maps.google.com and take a gander at Gaza and the various "Refugee Camps" and "UN Compounds." There is no practical difference between them and Gaza City proper. The name, "Al-Wherever Refugee Camp" is akin to the name used to identify any particular neighborhood.
George Orwell addressed a similar situation where a civilized society was in existential conflict with a barbarous society bent on destruction:
"You cannot be objective about an aerial torpedo. And the horror we feel of these things has led to this conclusion: if someone drops a bomb on your mother, go and drop two bombs on his mother. The only apparent alternatives are to smash dwelling houses to powder, blow out human entrails and burn holes in children with thermite, or to be enslaved by people who are more ready to do these things than you are yourself; as yet no one has suggested a practicable way out."
----George Orwell, reviewing Arthur Koestler's Spanish Testament for the magazine Time and Tide, Feb. 5, 1938
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The funny part is that people think that Hamas actually wants to negotiate with Israel. They don't, they want Israel gone from existence, nothing less. The Charter of Palestine itself promotes killing Jews.
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The funny part is that people think that Hamas actually wants to negotiate with Israel. They don't, they want Israel gone from existence, nothing less. The Charter of Palestine itself promotes killing Jews.
Good point, except they have negotiated with Israel in the past. And kept their part of the bargain. But apart from that, they arent to be trusted (except for democratic elections).
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I consider giving the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians to be pretty reasonable negotiation. Other than that, yes, I do agree that Israel should be talking to Hamas, since they are the legitimate government of the Palestinian state. However, before Israel can negotiate, Hamas MUST drop this suicidal vendetta against Israel. What use is negotiation when only one side is giving concessions?
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I consider giving the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians to be pretty reasonable negotiation. Other than that, yes, I do agree that Israel should be talking to Hamas, since they are the legitimate government of the Palestinian state. However, before Israel can negotiate, Hamas MUST drop this suicidal vendetta against Israel. What use is negotiation when only one side is giving concessions?
It's simple.
In exchange for Israel putting itself in a very vulnerable position by giving up all the land they won when they were defending themselves from aggressive neighbors AND letting a hostile populace from a failed state come and work in their country, the Gazans promise they will stop killing Jews.
And they really really mean it this time.
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It's simple.
In exchange for Israel putting itself in a very vulnerable position by giving up all the land they won when they were defending themselves from aggressive neighbors AND letting a hostile populace from a failed state come and work in their country, the Gazans promise they will stop killing Jews.
And they really really mean it this time.
You do know how they got hold of Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, right?
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In exchange for Israel putting itself in a very vulnerable position by giving up all the land they won when they were defending themselves from aggressive neighbors
LoL I knew that Micro was probably the only one on here you knew Isreal's history. You fail at history.
If the costs of this war are too high, why don't the Gazans STOP FIRING MISSILES INTO ISRAEL?
And you obviously cant form the distinction between Plaestinians and Hamas supporters or else this wouldnt even be in your post.
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You do know how they got hold of Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, right?
Six Day War.
Next question?
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Six Day War.
Next question?
Which was started by?
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Which was started by?
Ah yes, it's all Israel's fault because they didn't wait until the forces amassing at their borders actually crossed into Israel.
Just like, if you get attacked, you have to wait until the knife weilding guy who says he's going to kill you actually gets a chance to stab you before you shoot him.
Otherwise, it's just not proper.
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Ah yes, it's all Israel's fault because they didn't wait until the forces amassing at their borders actually crossed into Israel.
Just like, if you get attacked, you have to wait until the knife weilding guy who says he's going to kill you actually gets a chance to stab you before you shoot him.
Otherwise, it's just not proper.
What a shame your own Government (in the shape of LBJ, and Dean Rusk), most of the participants and probably reality itself disagrees with your analysis. Its not self-defence if you let your ally get the enemy to back down, and then attack him.
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What a shame your own Government (in the shape of LBJ, and Dean Rusk), most of the participants and probably reality itself disagrees with your analysis. Its not self-defence if you let your ally get the enemy to back down, and then attack him.
If someone shoots at you, "retreats" in the form of running behind cover, then reloads and shoots at you again, and then keeps doing that over and over, you wouldn't shoot back?
Victorious armies followed the enemy and destroyed them, they didn't let them regroup and come at them again. You've never read Sun Tzu, that's for sure.
And even Hamas said that a "cease fire" just means that Israel would back out, but not that they'd stop firing rockets at Israel. That's absolutely retarded, and shows the mentality Israel has to deal with.
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If someone shoots at you, "retreats" in the form of running behind cover, then reloads and shoots at you again, and then keeps doing that over and over, you wouldn't shoot back?
Victorious armies followed the enemy and destroyed them, they didn't let them regroup and come at them again. You've never read Sun Tzu, that's for sure.
And even Hamas said that a "cease fire" just means that Israel would back out, but not that they'd stop firing rockets at Israel. That's absolutely retarded, and shows the mentality Israel has to deal with.
They hadnt shot at them. We are talking about 1967.
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They hadnt shot at them. We are talking about 1967.
If you declare war on someone, you do take the risk that the object of the declaration takes you seriously.
FTR, the countries that made war on Israel in 1948 were still in a state of war in 1967. If they didn't want war, they should have sued for peace and not massed their armies on Israel's borders instead of waiting until the late 1970s (Egypt) and the 1990s (Jordan). Oddly enough, since Egypt & Jordan have rescinded their declarations of war and not massed troops on Israel's border, the level of conflict between them has not been worthy of note.
Don't want a war? Not declaring one is the first step...
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If you declare war on someone, you do take the risk that the object of the declaration takes you seriously.
FTR, the countries that made war on Israel in 1948 were still in a state of war in 1967. If they didn't want war, they should have sued for peace and not massed their armies on Israel's borders instead of waiting until the late 1970s (Egypt) and the 1990s (Jordan). Oddly enough, since Egypt & Jordan have rescinded their declarations of war and not massed troops on Israel's border, the level of conflict between them has not been worthy of note.
Don't want a war? Not declaring one is the first step...
No kidding. If you say you're going to attack, and then you act like you're going to attack, people will rightly assume that you're going to attack. Don't be surprised when they react accordingly.
But of course aggressive action is only wrong when Israel does it. When Arabs act aggressively it's entirely justified.
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If you declare war on someone, you do take the risk that the object of the declaration takes you seriously.
FTR, the countries that made war on Israel in 1948 were still in a state of war in 1967. If they didn't want war, they should have sued for peace and not massed their armies on Israel's borders instead of waiting until the late 1970s (Egypt) and the 1990s (Jordan). Oddly enough, since Egypt & Jordan have rescinded their declarations of war and not massed troops on Israel's border, the level of conflict between them has not been worthy of note.
Don't want a war? Not declaring one is the first step...
No, there had been a ceasefire in place since 1949 (excepting the other time Israel "defended itself" during Suez) that had largely been held by all sides. In 1967 Egypt's buildup on its borders was paralleled by Israeli buildup on its borders. The US had - with Soviet assistance - managed to get Egypt to back down, something that the Israelis did not believe. The end result was the war that, after 1948, has led us to this disaster.
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If you declare war on someone, you do take the risk that the object of the declaration takes you seriously.
FTR, the countries that made war on Israel in 1948 were still in a state of war in 1967. If they didn't want war, they should have sued for peace and not massed their armies on Israel's borders instead of waiting until the late 1970s (Egypt) and the 1990s (Jordan). Oddly enough, since Egypt & Jordan have rescinded their declarations of war and not massed troops on Israel's border, the level of conflict between them has not been worthy of note.
Don't want a war? Not declaring one is the first step...
You are focusing on elements of the timeline that don't explain the situation properly.
The 1948, 56, and 67 wars were lopsided from the beginning-the Arabs had no chance, and except for 67, were totally outnumbered, out-armed, and outclassed before the war even began. Hence, Israel did not even bother to discuss terms for peace with them; what would they offer in return that Israel couldn't just take anyway?
Egypt has peace with Israel directly as a result of its nearly destroying in Israel in 1973. Once Egypt became too dangerous to gamble on in the future, Israel caved and gave it everything it wanted.
Jordan was rewarded for its participation against Syria and its longstanding efforts to destroy the Palestinian leadership with favorable terms for peace. That is why Jordan has peace with Israel; it always wanted it anyway, and has mostly been helping Israel throughout the conflict.
The history of the peace treaties shows that only two factors will lead to peace with Israel amongst its neighbors: either 1) A demonstrated capacity to put Israel's existence in jeopardy or 2) A record of assisting Israel in intelligence and paramilitary operations against Palestinians.
No country that is not either under category one, or category two, has ever even been close to peace with Israel. The foreign policy of Israel reflects an unwillingness to quibble over "rights" and "morals"; it considers only the available military force and the value of military assistance.
The Palestinians are failing to achieve peace with Israel simply because their rockets and armies were not as big as the Egyptian ones in 1973; they could disarm tomorrow and they'd just be treated exactly as they were between 67 and 88 (when they were mostly disarmed and nonviolent anyway).
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No, there had been a ceasefire in place since 1949 (excepting the other time Israel "defended itself" during Suez) that had largely been held by all sides. In 1967 Egypt's buildup on its borders was paralleled by Israeli buildup on its borders. The US had - with Soviet assistance - managed to get Egypt to back down, something that the Israelis did not believe. The end result was the war that, after 1948, has led us to this disaster.
You do know that an armistice or a ceasefire does not necessarily end a war, don't you? It just stops it for a while, usually to begin at a later date. N Korea and the USA are still at war, FTR. If the Norks start slinging arty over the DMZ, I do hope we do something about it other than drink champagne with the Nork dictator.
Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi, & Yemen were all at war with Israel from 1948 on. In 1967, they were all still at war with Israel. If they didn't want what Israel could dish out, they could have avoided it by rescinding their declarations of war. Peace treaties have only been inked with Egypt & Jordan (1979 & 1994).
Oh, this backing down by the Arab dictators...was that before or after Egypt expelled the UNEF observers on 19MAY? Before or after Egypt blockaded the Straits of Tiran on 22MAY? Was it before or after Egypt & Jordan made a pact to war on Israel on 30MAY? Where in time in relation to the war pact between Egypt, Syria, & Iraq, penned on 04JUN? I assume it was sometime before 05JUN when Israel destroyed Egypt's Air Force.
Looks like this "backing down" must have occurred sometime between 04-05JUN, after the last Arab war pact and before the Israelis struck.
Oddly enough, I read that one of the first bits of escalation was the shelling of Israeli villages by Syrian arty & rockets. Israel does seem to take that sort of thing poorly.
Like I wrote above, the first step to staying out of war is not to declare it in the first place.
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You are focusing on elements of the timeline that don't explain the situation properly.
Always a kidder, aren't you SS?
Reminds me of a character I saw once on Babylon 5 who made a distinction between "goodfacts" and "truefacts."
The 1948, 56, and 67 wars were lopsided from the beginning-the Arabs had no chance, and except for 67, were totally outnumbered, out-armed, and outclassed before the war even began. Hence, Israel did not even bother to discuss terms for peace with them; what would they offer in return that Israel couldn't just take anyway?
Uh, that is pretty hilarious, right there.
In truth, the Israelis were armed with a motley collection of Brit, French, US, and even German WWII equipment and a few other systems bought on the arms market. They also had war-captured comblock equipment and would in 1967 & 1973 equip entire formations with captured comblock equipment.
Know what was the primary vehicle used in the assault up into the Golan Heights in 1967? WWII-era US-surplus half tracks. The 1967 Israeli tank force consisted of U.S. M48 Patton tanks, Brit Centurion tanks, and upgraded World War II era Sherman tanks.
The best-equipped force at the time of independence was the Brit-trained Arab Legion. Lots of good Brit training and good Brit equipment.
In 1967, Nasser had the best comblock export equipment available: T55 tanks in large numbers, in addition to all the other kit necessary for a 20th century mechanized force. Syria had a similar complement, but not as numerous.
(I once almost bought a WWII Mauser K98 bought up by the Israelis and converted to 7.62NATO)
Here is an image of a receiver of one:
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cruffler.com%2FIsraeliK98kReceiverLeft.jpg&hash=7e3ef0390de7aee9405e150922f829e8e401822a)
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In truth, the Israelis were armed with a motley collection of Brit, French, US, and even German WWII equipment and a few other systems bought on the arms market. They also had war-captured comblock equipment and would in 1967 & 1973 equip entire formations with captured comblock equipment.
In 48, this "motley collection" put the Arab forces to shame-some of the Arab units were still armed with muzzleloaders, and they were outnumbered and disorganized. It wasn't even close, and anyone who looked at the relative state of the forces before the war (as America did) could obviously see what the outcome would be.
In 67, the egyptian air force was destroyed on the first day of battle. After that, it was again no military contest. The equipment wasn't even near the disparity needed to change the balances after Israel's surprise attack. Nasser was a moron who believed American promises that Israel would not attack him first.
Stating what the Israeli equipment was is meaningless unless you compare the Arab equipment-add it in to your scenario, and you'll see how ridiculous it is to talk about the outgunned Israelis. They were far ahead of their Arab counterparts.
1973 was a different story-that's why Israel has peace with Egypt; because Egypt of 1973 very well could have destroyed Israel, and proved it. Hence, even though Sadat was a Nazi (I mean that literally-he was a fascist politically and an anti-semite who loved the Nazis) and Mubarak is right up his alley, Israel made peace with Egypt.
That is proof positive that "democracy" or "western civilization" or any other factor has absolutely zero to do with peace between Israel and its neighbors; the only proven factor aside from assisting Israel in killing Palestinian leadership (that's Jordan's angle) is a demonstrated threat to the existence of the state. Achieve that level of military sophistication, and you'll have a peace treaty in short order. Otherwise, you're in the shoes of the Lebanese and Palestinians.
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Y'all can argue who was better armed till the cows come home. Ultimately it doesn't matter who had what weapons.
We can also argue who started it till the cows come home. That doesn't matter much either. What matters is that it was started, and both sides felt they had legitimate grievances.
The same is true of the current conflict. We can argue who started it, but both sides are now in it, and both sides think they have legitimate grievances.
What matters now is that they're in a war. So what now? Call another cease fire so that the mess can fester for a few months before flaring to life again? That just guarantees a future of never ending death and destruction and instability for both sides.
Seems to me that both sides should go all out and try to defeat their enemies as best they can. Seems to me that they should both do their best to secure victory on their terms.
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Perhaps they should think of that figure the next time they think lobbing a few rockets over is a good idea?
Not only is it wrong, it's a war they should know damn well they can't win.
The problem is the Palis aren't some monolithic government entity. The hamas pricks don't care about civilian casualties, as they can just use that for their propaganda. Every woman or child that gets killed is just another bad thing they can show the media, and use to make Isreal look bad. They'll say crap like "ISREAL KILLED THESE KIDS!" but they won't say "We did have a katyusha rocket launcher truck parked right next door to the school/madrassa/nursery/whatever. "
Sure, you can say "then they should do something about Hamas, but what?
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Seems to me that both sides should go all out and try to defeat their enemies as best they can. Seems to me that they should both do their best to secure victory on their terms.
Would you support or sympathize with suicide bombings as a method of "doing their best to secure victory on their terms"?
That's the problem with saying "oh, they should just have it out and then it will be all over." Actually, it will not be all over-what will happen is that thousands of people will die for no purpose this time, and the embittered populations will simply head for the next round later. And this is particularly bad policy for the Israelis, because the refrain is true: the Arabs can lose round after round, but the Israelis will only get to lose once.
The most likely result of what's happening now, aside from hundreds of dead children, is that the governments which made peace with Israel will be destabilized and on the path towards toppling (not like they weren't already, but certainly the gaza assault has accelerated the process.)
We're going to wake up one morning to another Iran 1979, and people will be saying then "OMG! We didn't even see it coming."
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We're going to wake up one morning to another Iran 1979, and people will be saying then "OMG! We didn't even see it coming."
We already have two Iranian proxies: Hezbolla & Hamas. They managed to sprout up without any Israeli incursion into Gaza.
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We already have two Iranian proxies: Hezbolla & Hamas. They managed to sprout up without any Israeli incursion into Gaza.
They most certainly did not sprout up without an Israeli incursion into their countries. Unless you believe it was just a coincidence that Hizbullah was founded in 82 (when Israel occupied Beirut) and Hamas in 1988 (when Israel was building settlements for Jews only in Gaza, and using tanks to demolish the old homes)....
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They most certainly did not sprout up without an Israeli incursion into their countries. Unless you believe it was just a coincidence that Hizbullah was founded in 82 (when Israel occupied Beirut) and Hamas in 1988 (when Israel was building settlements for Jews only in Gaza, and using tanks to demolish the old homes)....
They sprouted up when Iran backed them with cash & equipment. No Iranian assistance would mean no Hezbollah or Hamas.
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In 48, this "motley collection" put the Arab forces to shame-some of the Arab units were still armed with muzzleloaders, and they were outnumbered and disorganized. It wasn't even close, and anyone who looked at the relative state of the forces before the war (as America did) could obviously see what the outcome would be.
In 67, the egyptian air force was destroyed on the first day of battle. After that, it was again no military contest. The equipment wasn't even near the disparity needed to change the balances after Israel's surprise attack. Nasser was a moron who believed American promises that Israel would not attack him first.
Stating what the Israeli equipment was is meaningless unless you compare the Arab equipment-add it in to your scenario, and you'll see how ridiculous it is to talk about the outgunned Israelis. They were far ahead of their Arab counterparts.
If, in 1948, you count each and every adult Jew in Israelas a combatant, yes they had "superior numbers" relative to the invading Arab armies. That is not a reasonable reading of the facts, though.
The military establishments of the various Arab states were not equipped with muzzle loaders. That would be local boys looking to shoot up some Jews for fun & profit.
Israeli equipment was piss-poor and they had no professional equivalent to the Arab Legion, a force equipped & trained to Brit standards (to include mech forces) and led by Brit officers in 1948.
In contrast, during the 1948 war, Israel had a grand total of 14 operational M4 Sherman tanks it had salvaged from an Italian junkyard and re-gunned with 75mm Krupp guns, since the original guns had been demilled in anticipation of the tanks being sold for their scrap metal value.
The Sherman and its variants was the backbone of Israeli armor through the 1973 war, when they were destroyed in large numbers by Soviet Sagger ATGMs.
Meanwhile, in 1956 those Shermans squared off vs Egyptian Shermans equipped with a superior French AMX13 turret. In 1967, Israeli Shermans fought versus Soviet T34, T55, & T54 tanks manned by Egyptians, much superior to the Sherman (which was considered barely adequate for a WWII tank). On the other side of the country, the Shermans faced US-built M47 Patton tanks. In 1973, those Shermans face more T54/55 tanks, along with the even more advanced T62 tanks.
The arithmetic for capable combat aircraft was 2:1 against the Israelis at the start of the Six Day War counting only Egyptian aircraft. Capable defined as contemporary jet fighters & medium bombers.
Sorry, no reasonable analysis can be made for the superiority in quantity or quality of Israeli equipment over their antagonists' until well after 1973.
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They sprouted up when Iran backed them with cash & equipment. No Iranian assistance would mean no Hezbollah or Hamas.
Well, with Hamas that's certainly false-it was started with Israeli government funds. Hamas's connection to Iran is rhetorical, and has only existed since roughly the time of the 06 war. Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood organization, fyi...so it should make sense to question any theories out there about Iranian backing.
Hizbullah sprouted up out of Lebanese who turned on Israel following the invasion of 82.
It seems to be a huge stretch to discount the invasions by Israel corresponding exactly to the years these groups were founded, but then to say Iranian cash was the reason they sprang up.
As for the state of Israeli forces in 1948: There is not a single source from the period which saw anything other than a huge advantage in arms, training, organization, and numbers on the battlefield for the Jewish forces.
I will link you to the Anglo-American statement on the forces, which was accords with every source available on the state of the relative militaries: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/angch09.asp (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/angch09.asp)
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i'll never forget my shock at arafats wealth and where it came from
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A unilateral ceasefire has been declared by Israel. Hamas keeps shooting.
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A unilateral ceasefire has been declared by Israel. Hamas keeps shooting.
They already said that's what they'd do. The head of Hamas, a week ago, said that a ceasefire means that Israel would back off, but it didn't mean that Hamas would stop firing rockets.
You can't reason with the obsessively insane.
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Note Hamas broke the ceasefire first.
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Note Hamas broke the ceasefire first.
Just like they did last month, yes.
You hear "ceasefire". To Hamas, that means "Ha ha, they fell for it! Let's reload and resupply with weapons before resuming firing!"
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Would you support or sympathize with suicide bombings as a method of "doing their best to secure victory on their terms"?
Are you asking if I condone deliberate and indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians?
That's a really dumb question, even coming from a Hamas sympathizer.
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And of course, Gilad Shalit remains a prisoner.
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flonestartimes.com%2Fimages%2FBenzion%2FJune_06%2FGilad_Shalit.JPG&hash=834d308759e0f9f5642bf2d48a8bda34708ecc4d)
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There are some opponents I would not want to surrender to and would rather DIP.
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There are some opponents I would not want to surrender to and would rather DIP.
Don't be too hard on Shalit; the Army here explicitly trains troops to surrender when no other exit is possible, and besides, he was injured and had his left arm broken. Kind of hard to use the issue rifle to kill yourself when your arm is broken.
He deserves to be brought home. Period.
If we are to survive as a society, we are not to abandoned our troops in enemy hands.
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Are you asking if I condone deliberate and indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians?
That's a really dumb question, even coming from a Hamas sympathizer.
Okay, so if you don't condone "having it out all the way" or whatever language you used, but actually condone restraints, how do you propose that either side will end up forcing its terms on the other side?
I'm re-reading what you said, and that sure looks like a plug for total war.
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They already said that's what they'd do. The head of Hamas, a week ago, said that a ceasefire means that Israel would back off, but it didn't mean that Hamas would stop firing rockets.
You can't reason with the obsessively insane.
And you cannot declare a ceasefire unilaterally and then cry foul when the other side - who after all was not a party to any agreement about it - doesnt adhere to ceasing fire.
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Don't be too hard on Shalit; the Army here explicitly trains troops to surrender when no other exit is possible, and besides, he was injured and had his left arm broken. Kind of hard to use the issue rifle to kill yourself when your arm is broken.
He deserves to be brought home. Period.
If we are to survive as a society, we are not to abandoned our troops in enemy hands.
I would just hope he's still alive. =(
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Let's see, at the end of the war:
1. More than a thousand people dead, likely half civilians
2. The poorest people in the region have no infrastructure
3. Hamas is still capable of firing rockets and firing rockets
4. Hamas still exists, and is not obviously weakened in any material way
5. Gilad Shalit is still captive.
So what was the point of all this destruction again? What did it accomplish, for anybody?
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Clearly, upon your argument, we should stay there until Gilad Shalit is returned, the firing of the rockets starts, and Hamas is removed from power. I'm all for it.
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Clearly, upon your argument, we should stay there until Gilad Shalit is returned, the firing of the rockets starts, and Hamas is removed from power. I'm all for it.
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Militants fired four rockets into southern Israel and exchanged gunfire with troops in northern Gaza Sunday, hours after Israel declared a unilateral cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, an Israeli spokesman said.
The Qassam rockets were fired into Sderot at 9 a.m. -- seven hours after Israel's cease-fire went into effect. The rockets did not injure anyone, the spokesman said.
Dude. You need an APC or something instead of a car.
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I don't have a car. Driving lessons here are more expensive than a second-hand car is in America.
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And you cannot declare a ceasefire unilaterally and then cry foul when the other side - who after all was not a party to any agreement about it - doesnt adhere to ceasing fire.
So you agree ten. Hammas wants no part of a cease fire?
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Let's see, at the end of the war:
1. More than a thousand people dead, likely half civilians
2. The poorest people in the region have no infrastructure
3. Hamas is still capable of firing rockets and firing rockets
4. Hamas still exists, and is not obviously weakened in any material way
5. Gilad Shalit is still captive.
So what was the point of all this destruction again? What did it accomplish, for anybody?
Its a shame the Israelis dont have a carrier for Olmert to heroically backseat onto and proclaim "Mission Accomplished!".
So you agree ten. Hammas wants no part of a cease fire?
They have just announced one: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/18/israel-gaza-ceasefire-fragile
As for this, I would hope that the insanity of trying to deal with the situation by pretending one of the main players on the ground do not exist would stop after this disaster, though the developments since the ceasefire do not give me any confidence that will happen.
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Don't be too hard on Shalit; the Army here explicitly trains troops to surrender when no other exit is possible, and besides, he was injured and had his left arm broken. Kind of hard to use the issue rifle to kill yourself when your arm is broken.
He deserves to be brought home. Period.
If we are to survive as a society, we are not to abandoned our troops in enemy hands.
I was not criticizing Shalit, just making an observation. For all the mewling about US treatment of unlawful combatants, there is little attention paid to the vile treatment of prisoners by militant Islam.
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I was not criticizing Shalit, just making an observation. For all the mewling about US treatment of unlawful combatants, there is little attention paid to the vile treatment of prisoners by militant Islam.
Like Daniel Pearl?
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They have just announced one:
Very good. Now if they actually refrain from using a cease fire to turn the strip into one big launch pad, it should stay that way.
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Okay, so if you don't condone "having it out all the way" or whatever language you used, but actually condone restraints, how do you propose that either side will end up forcing its terms on the other side?
I'm re-reading what you said, and that sure looks like a plug for total war.
Defeating your enemy and protecting your own is the goal. Terror attacks on innocent civilians don't accomplish that. It murders innocents to no end, wastes your military resources, steels your enemy's resolve, and brands your side as barbaric and despicable.
And deliberately murdering innocent civilians is still indefensible.
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htg you familiar with the history of isreal vis a vis terrorism and attacks on civilians? particularly early on?
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htg you familiar with the history of isreal vis a vis terrorism and attacks on civilians? particularly early on?
CS&D is right. There were plenty of attacks on civilians in 1948. By everybody.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_committed_prior_to_the_1948_Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_war_in_Mandate_Palestine
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CS&D is right. There were plenty of attacks on civilians in 1948. By everybody.
There were plenty of attacks on civilians only a few years prior, too, except it was the Europeans, Japan and the US committing those particular attacks. It was a fairly standard component of warfare at that time, for a variety of reasons.
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the europeans planted bombs in hotels? i musta slept through that part of history class
http://www.spectacle.org/495/deir.html
The Assassination of Count Bernadotte
On September 17, 1948, four men dressed in Israeli Army uniforms assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte, the man appointed by the United Nations to mediate the growing Arab-Jewish dispute. The four killers were never brought to justice.
Israel's founding Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, knew who the assassins were: members of the so-called Stern Gang, a Jewish terrorist group of several hundred members founded in 1940. Ben-Gurion made a behind-the-scenes deal with the murderers: freedom from prosecution if they would cease violence. The man who organized the killing of Count Bernadotte was Yitzhak Shamir, who later became Prime Minister himself.
Kati Marton, writing in the November New Yorker, summed up the reasons for the murder:
Stern's explosive rhetoric and uncompromising nationalism foreshadowed those of today's Palestinian radicals. Like them, Shamir's underground hated what the United Nations mediator stood for: compromise, conciliation, the abandonment of maximilist demands in the service of turning enemies into neighbors.
The killing of Bernadotte contributed materially to the successful sabotage of the peace efforts. More than five decades of murder and counter-murder have finally brought us back to a serious prospect for peace in a bloody land. But there are still terrorists on both sides, the Jewish machine-gunner in the mosque, the Arab suicide bomber, determined to prevent this.
Deir Yassin
Certain names should be on everyone's lips, but are on no-one's. Most of the people I ask about Deir Yassin, people who profess to understand the politics of Israel, to be intimately involved with them, have never heard of it.
On April 9, 1948--thus five months prior to the killing of Count Bernadotte-- the combined forces of the Stern Gang and the Irgun (military arm of the Revisionist party, commanded by Menachem Begin, later Prime Minister) carried out reprisals in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. Like the Stern Gang, the Irgun was responsible for many horrors; but Deir Yassin may have been the worst.
The villagers had actually signed a nonaggression pact with a nearby Jewish village when the Stern Gang decided to destroy Deir Yassin to teach the Arabs a lesson for over-running other Jewish settlements. As a senior Irgun officer later said:
The clear aim was to break Arab morale and raise the morale of the Jewish community in Jerusalem which had been hit hard time after time...
The villagers resisted the 120 Jewish attackers, as they had a right to, and a heavy machine gun and a mortar were brought up to end the battle. Then the raiding party entered the village and started behaving like a Nazi Einsatzkommando. Twenty-three men were led off to a quarry and executed in cold blood, and between 90 and 230 others were shot down in the village.
Begin's statement afterwards:
Accept my congratulations on this splendid act of conquest....
News of Deir Yassin spread quickly and was influential in causing much of the Arab population to flee the borders of the newly declared Israeli state. Israel, of course, has built a whole structure of ownership based on the "abandonment" of their houses and lands, as well as arguing ceaselessly that those who fled in 1948 did so needlessly and do not deserve to come back.
(Source for the Deir Yassin information: Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (Harper Perennial, 1987).
What do these two events--the murder of Bernadotte, and "ethnic cleansing" at Deir Yassin--establish? That the state of Israel is rooted in the blood of one of its native populations, the Arabs. Two men, Begin and Shamir, later leaders of their country, were terrorists who planned and executed murders, and a third, Ben-Gurion, knew of murder and made secret deals protecting murderers.
Reverting to the issue of the Holocaust as a shield or an excuse for the Israelis, Israel is not, and has never been, primarily a nation of Holocaust survivors. Political Zionism has its roots in the 19th century and before. While Begin was a refugee from Poland, Ben Gurion had been in Palestine since early in the century, as had many of the early leaders of the new Israeli state. One early right-wing Zionist leader was Vladimir Jabotinsky, who wrote in 1923:
Zionism is a colonizing adventure and therefore it stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important to build, it is important to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot--or else I am through with playing at colonization.
(Quoted in Beit-Hallahmi, Original Sins, (Olive Branch Press 1992), a book by an Israeli professor which I highly recommend. Beit-Hallahmi sums up as follows:
It was easy to make the Palestinians pay for 2,000 years of persecution. The Palestinians, who have felt the enormous power of this vengeance, were not the historical oppressors of the Jews. They did not put Jews into ghettoes and did not force them to wear yellow stars. They did not plan holocausts. But they had one fault. They were weak and defenseless in the face of real military might, so they were the ideal victims for an abstract revenge...
A country founded in blood--built on the backs and the corpses of a group of its inhabitants--is badly off-balance and will never recover, if it does not undertake a terrible soul-searching, a flight from violence and lies. There is a stirring, a yearning for peace and relief from violence today, but it is still being mitigated by hatred, denial, greed, and the desire for revenge. When the Israelis learn to police their own lunatic fringe, can avoid offering with one hand what they withdraw with the other, and face the Palestinians with firm honesty, there will be a chance.
maybe thats why the us backs israel similar bloody pasts
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http://www.google.com/archivesearch?q=stern+gang&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7RNWE&um=1&ie=UTF-8&scoring=t&sa=X&oi=timeline_result&resnum=10&ct=title
Apr 9, 1948 - However, on April 9,1948, Irgun and Stern gang members, lead by Begin and Shamir, both of whom later became Israeli Prime Ministers, entered our village and slaughtered many people. They lined men, women and children up against walls, and shot them. Two hundred ...However, on April 9,1948, Irgun and Stern gang members, lead by Begin and Shamir, both of whom later became Israeli Prime Ministers, entered our village and slaughtered many people. They lined men, women and children up against walls, and shot them. Two hundred and fifty-four people were killed. I lost many family members: my father and grandfather, my brother, my oldest sister and her son. My mother lost a brother. CATHY: What happened to you after that?
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The United Nations mediator and Serot, his French aide, were slain Friday in the Jewish part of Jerusalem. The Israeli government has accused the Stern Gang, a Jewish extremist group, with responsibility for the shoot . authorities not only took vigorous measures to apprehend the ...
From Jews Arrest Stern Gang Terrorists . - Related web pagesnews.google.com/newspapers?id=th8LAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EE8DAAAAIBAJ&pg=2813,5751126&dq=stern+ gang
plenty more
and i hold the uss liberty trump card
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the europeans planted bombs in hotels? i musta slept through that part of history class
No, they just firebombed entire cities. Then there was that whole nuke thing we did.
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and i hold the uss liberty trump card
Lavon affair was far creepier.
Remember that? A chain of attacks on American and British targets?
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Yup, the Israelis did some pretty nasty stuff early on.
I don't see how that changes anything today. Indiscriminately, deliberately murdering civilians is wrong. "They did it too a long time ago" isn't a valid defense.
And no, this is not comparable to the strategic bombing that was done in WWII. That bombing was intended as an attack the enemy's military industrial complex, to disrupt their war production capacity. There is no comparable military or strategic value gained by targeting enemy pizza parlors and nightclubs.
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That bombing was intended as an attack the enemy's military industrial complex
no firebombing whole cities doesn't pass muster on that
dresden and tokyo are just 2 good examples carpet bombing was designed to break an enemies spirit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing
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thank you mb for teaching me something. i owe ya a home cooked meal when you get here.
try looking up the stalker affair for some brit skullduggery in ireland or their plans that were leaked about "ethnic cleansing " in the north
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dresden and tokyo are just 2 good examples carpet bombing was designed to break an enemies spirit
Dresden is very, very debatable, but I don't want to derail the thread.
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The firebombing of Tokyo is similarly debatable. I believe you'd have to establish that Tokyo had no military value to Imperial Japan, nor any significant war-production capacity. Otherwise it seems plain that Tokyo could be justified as a legitimate target for military operations.
There's a quote by one of the commanders who oversaw all bombing operations in the theater. It goes something like "for lack of a scapel we had to use a bludgeon". I bet they'd have traded all of their firebombs for an accurate bombsight that could have hit the factories and bridges and left the suburbs alone.
Suicide bombing a pizza joint or sending rockets at the elementary school in micro's hometown are not in any way comparable to strategic bombing.
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Israel will be retreating from Gaza today because of the inauguration. Victory had not been achieved.
Idiots.
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Israel will be retreating from Gaza today because of the inauguration. Victory had not been achieved.
Idiots.
Is that for real? Israel is withdrawing because of Obama and/or the inauguration?
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Is that for real? Israel is withdrawing because of Obama and/or the inauguration?
At least that's how Yedioth Ahronoth has it.
This is the Englis version, here:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3658377,00.html
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Israel will be retreating from Gaza today because of the inauguration. Victory had not been achieved.
Idiots.
So they get time to rearm, reload, and set up rocket launchers atop the remaining nursery schools.
They might even get more Grads set up.
Lovely.
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That bombing was intended as an attack the enemy's military industrial complex
no firebombing whole cities doesn't pass muster on that
dresden and tokyo are just 2 good examples carpet bombing was designed to break an enemies spirit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing
A goodly bit of Japanese manufactured war material was produced from decentralized, home fabrication facilities. It was a different model than, say, the USA's war material production. Japan had modernized, but was still not nearly as centralized, automated, or industrialized as most western powers. The residential location of these manufacturies was not going to deter the USA form trying to disrupt them.
Also, by the time in WWII that our bombers could reach mainland Japan, the Japanese had used up any consideration for their own civilian populations by Japan's treatment of opposing countrys' populations.
Add to those damning facts several years' worth of war propaganda in the USA, and I bet not a whisper was made for the consideration of civvie casualties by the decision-makers.
The quote I pasted by Orwell earlier in this thread applies to this case in spades.
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i think its kinda amusing that a country with 2 prime ministers who qualify as terrorists is being defended particularly in the light of
http://www.deiryassin.org/
Early in the morning of April 9, 1948, commandos of the Irgun (headed by Menachem Begin) and the Stern Gang attacked Deir Yassin, a village with about 750 Palestinian residents. The village lay outside of the area to be assigned by the United Nations to the Jewish State; it had a peaceful reputation. But it was located on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Deir Yassin was slated for occupation under Plan Dalet and the mainstream Jewish defense force, the Haganah, authorized the irregular terrorist forces of the Irgun and the Stern Gang to perform the takeover.
In all over 100 men, women, and children were systematically murdered. Fifty-three orphaned children were literally dumped along the wall of the Old City, where they were found by Miss Hind Husseini and brought behind the American Colony Hotel to her home, which was to become the Dar El-Tifl El-Arabi orphanage.
http://www.deiryassin.org/shimontzabar.html
even worse description here
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i think its kinda amusing that a country with 2 prime ministers who qualify as terrorists is being defended particularly in the light of
Dir Yassin is not the really disgusting part of 1948.
Dir Yassin was at least admitted to by Israel's government and to this day Israeli schools hold a memorial day to it.
Other, similar acts by other factions (*cough*Haganah*cough*) are played down by Israel.
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winners write the history books us history has similar things
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winners write the history books us history has similar things
Well yes. I take limited solace in the fact we at least admitted to Deir Yassin and teach to our kids that this was an atrocity.
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you should see the funny looks here if you point out that begin had a price on his head or that isreal made arafat one of the richest folks in the world
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you should see the funny looks here if you point out that begin had a price on his head or that isreal made arafat one of the richest folks in the world
I'll raise you a better one: Shimon Peres was accused of being a Lavon Affair co-conspirator.
An unindicted conspirator, as some would say if he were a Muslim.
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i don't know if this is a raise or not but we interred some chinese in ww2 they all look alike. i'd have really been steamed about that they fought the japanese longer than we vdid and paid the price
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The firebombing of Tokyo is similarly debatable. I believe you'd have to establish that Tokyo had no military value to Imperial Japan, nor any significant war-production capacity. Otherwise it seems plain that Tokyo could be justified as a legitimate target for military operations.
Suicide bombing a pizza joint or sending rockets at the elementary school in micro's hometown are not in any way comparable.
It's tough to see how this is anything other than a blatant contradiction-you just said that deliberately killing civilians is indefensible.
But now you're saying that it's defensible as long as killing the civilians will also in some way diminish the military capacity of the state via decimating its production? Why does that make deliberate killing of civilians okay?
Basically, your argument arrives at the paradoxical conclusion that if Hamas could make a suicide bomb powerful enough to destroy the factories in Ashkelon upon detonation in a cafe, that would be "debateable", but as long as Hamas can only kill civilians in one cafe....why that's clearly indefensible.
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it do seem peculiar and i'm a great admirer of israel for the most part just try not to be delusional about it. and i firmly believe they would deaL with us harshly if it served them. the liberty and various spying for example. that freighter full of yellow cake as another http://books.google.com/books?id=FQp-3X9X2XQC&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78&dq=israel+frieghter+of+yellow+cake&source=bl&ots=VshLGVgrT4&sig=A5y-TNqcejukCjnhEXi5ZeEAE64&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result
though i understand we helped with that one
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It's tough to see how this is anything other than a blatant contradiction-you just said that deliberately killing civilians is indefensible.
But now you're saying that it's defensible as long as killing the civilians will also in some way diminish the military capacity of the state via decimating its production? Why does that make deliberate killing of civilians okay?
Basically, your argument arrives at the paradoxical conclusion that if Hamas could make a suicide bomb powerful enough to destroy the factories in Ashkelon upon detonation in a cafe, that would be "debateable", but as long as Hamas can only kill civilians in one cafe....why that's clearly indefensible.
Are you pretending to be dumb, playing devil's advocate or somesuch? Or do you sincerely not understand?
Attacking enemy industrial facilities and infrastructure is not the same as trying to murder as many innocent civilians as you can. There is nothing contradictory about accepting the former and condemning the latter.
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Are you pretending to be dumb, playing devil's advocate or somesuch? Or do you sincerely not understand?
Attacking enemy industrial facilities and infrastructure is not the same as trying to murder as many innocent civilians as you can. There is nothing contradictory about accepting the former and condemning the latter.
I think perhaps your frustration is the result of not carrying through the argument you made. It's certainly not easy to claim that destroying whole cities is "debateable", but to still agree with the European/American legal tradition that smaller scale killing of civilians is wrong.
You clearly did not respond to the substance of the point, which was that both acts involve intentionally killing civilians. Just because you call destroying an entire city "attacking enemy infrastructure" does not make it any less clear that the act involves intentional killing of civilians.
You're just using different words to leave out the intentional killing part, and then concluding that the difference is obvious. I don't believe it's necessary to play dumb to notice that the reasoning isn't terribly solid there.
Note that when this issue was considered in the war crimes efforts after WWII, it wasn't like the allies just said "hey, it wasn't killing civilians when we bombed all those cities." They most certainly did not-they offered as a defense to the Japanese and Germans the fact that the Allies had used the same tactics in war crimes trials. They did not conclude that German carpet bombing was somehow not a war crime; they simply refused to convict the Germans of crimes that the Allies had also committed, noting that it would be blatantly hypocritical.
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and in ww2 one part of germany got hit very lightly coincidentally its the part ikes family was from
heres some more goodness the term "dehousing" is so clean
On 14 February 1942, Directive No. 22 was issued to bomber command. Bombing was to be "focused on the morale of the enemy civil population and in particular of the industrial workers." Factories were no longer targets.[citation needed]
In February 1942, the British abandoned attempts at strategic precision bombing and with the issuing of the area bombing directive to the RAF, put most of their strategic bombing efforts into night time area bombardment and the "dehousing" of the German workforce. This strategy remained in place until the last month of the war in Europe,
The United States Government entered the war intending to use strategic daylight precision bombing, which was used with mixed success in Europe and never officially abandoned as a policy. But the weather over Germany, particularly in the winter months, often caused primary targets to be obscured by cloud, in such instances the USAAF's secondary targets were often located in city centres and bombed using imprecise bombing methods such as H2X radar. For example on 15 February 1945 the centre of Dresden was bombed using H2X because the primary target, the synthetic oil plant near Leipzig, was obscured by cloud.[8] When the USAAF anticipated cloudy conditions over the target they frequently used a mix of high explosive and incendiaries bombs that were closer to the RAF city busting mix than that usually used for precision attacks.[9] Over Japan, because of the jetstream, strategic precision bombing proved to be impractical and the United States abandoned the policy in favour of a policy of area bombardment.
In World War II, strategic aerial bombardment claimed the lives of over 160,000 Allied airmen in the European theatre,[10] 60,595 British civilians and between 305,000 and 600,000 German civilians, [11][12] while American precision bombing, fire bombing and atomic bombing in Japan killed between 330,000 and 500,000 Japanese civilians.[13
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http://www.rense.com/general19/flame.htm
The WWII Dresden Holocaust -
'A Single Column Of Flame'
2-6-2
"You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined." --Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
On the evening of February 13, 1945, an orgy of genocide and barbarism began against a defenseless German city, one of the greatest cultural centers of northern Europe. Within less than 14 hours not only was it reduced to flaming ruins, but an estimated one-third of its inhabitants, possibly as many as a half a million, had perished in what was the worst single event massacre of all time.
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Toward the end of World War II, as Allied planes rained death and destruction over Germany, the old Saxon city of Dresden lay like an island of tranquillity amid desolation. Famous as a cultural center and possessing no military value, Dresden had been spared the terror that descended from the skies over the rest of the country.
In fact, little had been done to provide the ancient city of artists and craftsmen with anti-aircraft defenses. One squadron of planes had been stationed in Dresden for awhile, but the Luftwaffe decided to move the aircraft to another area where they would be of use. A gentlemen's agreement seemed to prevail, designating Dresden an "open city."
February 13/14 1945: Holocaust over Dresden, known as the Florence of the North. Dresden was a hospital city for wounded soldiers. Not one military unit, not one anti-aircraft battery was deployed in the city. Together with the 600.000 refugees from Breslau, Dresden was filled with nearly 1.2 million people. Churchill had asked for "suggestions how to blaze 600.000 refugees". He wasn't interested how to target military installations 60 miles outside of Dresden. More than 700.000 phosphorus bombs were dropped on 1.2 million people. One bomb for every 2 people. The temperature in the centre of the city reached 1600 o centigrade. More than 260.000 bodies and residues of bodies were counted. But those who perished in the centre of the city can't be traced. Approximately 500.000 children, women, the elderly, wounded soldiers and the animals of the zoo were slaughtered in one night.
On Shrove Tuesday, February 13, 1945, a flood of refugees fleeing the Red Army 60 miles away had swollen the city's population to well over a million. Each new refugee brought fearful accounts of Soviet atrocities. Little did those refugees retreating from the Red terror imagine that they were about to die in a horror worse than anything Stalin could devise.
Normally, a carnival atmosphere prevailed in Dresden on Shrove Tuesday. In 1945, however, the outlook was rather dismal. Houses everywhere overflowed with refugees, and thousands were forced to camp out in the streets shivering in the bitter cold.
However, the people felt relatively safe; and although the mood was grim, the circus played to a full house that night as thousands came to forget for a moment the horrors of war. Bands of little girls paraded about in carnival dress in an effort to bolster warning spirits. Half-sad smiles greeted the laughing girls, but spirits were lifted.
No one realized that in less than 24 hours those same innocent children would die screaming in Churchill's firestorms. But, of course, no one could know that then. The Russians, to be sure, were savages, but at least the Americans and British were "honorable."
So, when those first alarms signaled the start of 14 hours of hell, Dresden's people streamed dutifully into their shelters. But they did so without much enthusiasm, believing the alarms to be false, since their city had never been threatened from the air. Many would never come out alive, for that "great democratic statesman," Winston Churchill--in collusion with that other "great democratic statesman," Franklin Delano Roosevelt--had decided that the city of Dresden was to be obliterated by saturation bombing.
What where Churchill's motives? They appear to have been political, rather than military. Historians unanimously agree that Dresden had no military value. What industry it did have produced only cigarettes and china.
But the Yalta Conference was coming up, in which the Soviets and their Western allies would sit down like ghouls to carve up the shattered corpse of Europe. Churchill wanted a trump card--a devastating "thunderclap of Anglo-American annihilation"--with which to "impress" Stalin.
That card, however, was never played at Yalta, because bad weather delayed the originally scheduled raid. Yet Churchill insisted that the raid be carried out--to "disrupt and confuse" the German civilian population behind the lines.
Dresden's citizens barely had time to reach their shelters. The first bomb fell at 10:09 p.m. The attack lasted 24 minutes, leaving the inner city a raging sea of fire. "Precision saturation bombing" had created the desired firestorm.
A firestorm is caused when hundreds of smaller fires join in one vast conflagration. Huge masses of air are sucked in to feed the inferno, causing an artificial tornado. Those persons unlucky enough to be caught in the rush of wind are hurled down entire streets into the flames. Those who seek refuge underground often suffocate as oxygen is pulled from the air to feed the blaze, or they perish in a blast of white heat--heat intense enough to melt human flesh.
One eyewitness who survived told of seeing "young women carrying babies running up and down the streets, their dresses and hair on fire, screaming until they fell down, or the collapsing buildings fell on top of them."
There was a three-hour pause between the first and second raids. The lull had been calculated to lure civilians from their shelters into the open again. To escape the flames, tens of thousands of civilians had crowded into the Grosser Garten, a magnificent park nearly one and a half miles square.
The second raid came at 1:22 a.m. with no warning. Twice as many bombers returned with a massive load of incendiary bombs. The second wave was designed to spread the raging firestorm into the Grosser Garten.
It was a complete "success." Within a few minutes a sheet of flame ripped across the grass, uprooting trees and littering the branches of others with everything from bicycles to human limbs. For days afterward, they remained bizarrely strewn about as grim reminders of Allied sadism.
At the start of the second air assault, many were still huddled in tunnels and cellars, waiting for the fires of the first attack to die down. At 1:30 a.m. an ominous rumble reached the ears of the commander of a Labor Service convoy sent into the city on a rescue mission. He described it this way:
"The detonation shook the cellar walls. The sound of the explosions mingled with a new, stranger sound which seemed to come closer and closer, the sound of a thundering waterfall; it was the sound of the mighty tornado howling in the inner city."
MELTING HUMAN FLESH
Others hiding below ground died. But they died painlessly--they simply glowed bright orange and blue in the darkness. As the heat intensified, they either disintegrated into cinders or melted into a thick liquid--often three or four feet deep in spots.
Shortly after 10:30 on the morning of February 14, the last raid swept over the city. American bombers pounded the rubble that had been Dresden for a steady 38 minutes. But this attack was not nearly as heavy as the first two.
However, what distinguished this raid was the cold-blooded ruthlessness with which it was carried out. U.S. Mustangs appeared low over the city, strafing anything that moved, including a column of rescue vehicles rushing to the city to evacuate survivors. One assault was aimed at the banks of the Elbe River, where refugees had huddled during the horrible night.
In the last year of the war, Dresden had become a hospital town. During the previous night's massacre, heroic nurses had dragged thousands of crippled patients to the Elbe. The low-flying Mustangs machine-gunned those helpless patients, as well as thousands of old men, women and children who had escaped the city.
When the last plane left the sky, Dresden was a scorched ruin, its blackened streets filled with corpses. The city was spared no horror. A flock of vultures escaped from the zoo and fattened on the carnage. Rats swarmed over the piles of corpses.
A Swiss citizen described his visit to Dresden two weeks after the raid: "I could see torn-off arms and legs, mutilated torsos and heads which had been wrenched from their bodies and rolled away. In places the corpses were still lying so densely that I had to clear a path through them in order not to tread on arms and legs."
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Kurt Vonnegut was in Dresden when it was bombed in 1945, and wrote a famous anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse Five, in 1969.
In February 1945, Vonnegut was witness to another pretty good imitation of Mt Vesuvius; the firebombing by Allied forces of Dresden, the town in eastern Germany, during the last months of the Second World War. More than 600,000 incen-diary bombs later, the city looked more like the surface of the moon. Returning home to India-napolis after the war, Vonnegut began writing short stories for magazines such as Collier's and The Saturday Evening Post, and, seven years later, published his first novel, Player Piano. ...
Finally, in 1969, he tackled the subject of war, recounting his experiences as a POW in Dresden, forced to dig corpses from the rubble. The resulting novel was Slaughterhouse Five. Banned in several US states - and branded a "tool of the devil" in North Dakota - it carried the snappy alternative title: "The Children's Crusade: A Duly Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, a fourth-generation German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod (and smoking too much) who, as an American infantry scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire bombing of Dresden, Germany - the Florence of the Elbe - a long time ago, and survived to tell the tale: this is a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizopfrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamodre, where the flying saucers come from, Peace." ....
In December 1944, Vonnegut was captured by the German army and became a prisoner of war. In Slaughterhouse Five, he describes how he narrowly escaped death a few months later in the firebombing of Dresden. "Yes, by your people [the English], may I say," he insists. "You guys burnt the place down, turned it into a single column of flame. More people died there in the firestorm, in that one big flame, than died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. I'm fond of your people, on occasion, but I was just thinking about 'Bomber Harris, who believed in attacks on civilian populations to make them give up. A hell of a lot of Royal Air Force guys were ashamed of what Harris had made them do. And that's really sportsmanship and, of course, the Brits are famous for being good sports," he concedes.
The Independent, London, 20 December 2001, p. 19
***************
The death toll was staggering. The full extent of the Dresden Holocaust can be more readily grasped if one considers that well over 250,000 -- possibly as many as a half a million -- persons died within a 14-hour period, whereas estimates of those who died at Hiroshima range from 90,000 to 140,000.*
Allied apologists for the massacre have often "twinned" Dresden with the English city of Coventry. But the 380 killed in Coventry during the entire war cannot begin to compare with over 1,000 times that number who were slaughtered in 14 hours at Dresden. Moreover, Coventry was a munitions center, a legitimate military target. Dresden, on the other hand, produced only china--and cups and saucers can hardly be considered military hardware!
It is interesting to further compare the respective damage to London and Dresden, especially when we recall all the Hollywood schmaltz about the "London blitz." In one night, 1,600 acres of land were destroyed in the Dresden massacre. London escaped with damage to only 600 acres during the entire war.
In one ironic note, Dresden's only conceivable military target -- its railroad yards -- was ignored by Allied bombers. They were too busy concentrating on helpless old men, women and children.
If ever there was a war crime, then certainly the Dresden Holocaust ranks as the most sordid one of all time. Yet there are no movies made today condemning this fiendish slaughter; nor did any Allied airman--or Sir Winston--sit in the dock at Nuremberg. In fact, the Dresden airmen were actually awarded medals for their role in this mass murder. But, of course, they could not have been tried, because there were "only following orders."
This is not to say that the mountains of corpses left in Dresden were ignored by the Nuremberg Tribunal. In one final irony, the prosecution presented photographs of the Dresden dead as "evidence" of alleged National Socialist atrocities against Jewish concentration-camp inmates!
Churchill, the monster who ordered the Dresden slaughter, was knighted, and the rest is history. The cold-blooded sadism of the massacre, however, is brushed aside by his biographers, who still cannot bring themselves to tell how the desire of one madman to "impress" another one let to the mass murder of up to a half million men, women and children.
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There are a lot of problems with that article - the death toll was nowhere near a quarter of a million, and Dresden was producing military equipment and was a transportation hub. The rest of the problems are adequately dealt with by this quote from Harris:
...I assume that the view under consideration is something like this: no doubt in the past we were justified in attacking German cities. But to do so was always repugnant and now that the Germans are beaten anyway we can properly abstain from proceeding with these attacks. This is a doctrine to which I could never subscribe. Attacks on cities like any other act of war are intolerable unless they are strategically justified. But they are strategically justified in so far as they tend to shorten the war and preserve the lives of Allied soldiers. To my mind we have absolutely no right to give them up unless it is certain that they will not have this effect. I do not personally regard the whole of the remaining cities of Germany as worth the bones of one British Grenadier. The feeling, such as there is, over Dresden, could be easily explained by any psychiatrist. It is connected with German bands and Dresden shepherdesses. Actually Dresden was a mass of munitions works, an intact government centre, and a key transportation point to the East. It is now none of these things.
It is also worth pointing out that, of course, Germany was engaged in a war that it had started, that had cost upwards of fifty million lives, was still at that time engaged in serious attempts to industrially murder whole swathes of society that it didnt like and which was still fighting. Dresden was justified. They would have been justified nuking it.
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what military equipment? and in a most holy miracle in a raid spanning 14 hours with more than 500 k individual fire bomblets the rail yard was spared. pure luck that?
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I think perhaps your frustration is the result of not carrying through the argument you made. It's certainly not easy to claim that destroying whole cities is "debateable", but to still agree with the European/American legal tradition that smaller scale killing of civilians is wrong.
You clearly did not respond to the substance of the point, which was that both acts involve intentionally killing civilians. Just because you call destroying an entire city "attacking enemy infrastructure" does not make it any less clear that the act involves intentional killing of civilians.
You're just using different words to leave out the intentional killing part, and then concluding that the difference is obvious. I don't believe it's necessary to play dumb to notice that the reasoning isn't terribly solid there.
Note that when this issue was considered in the war crimes efforts after WWII, it wasn't like the allies just said "hey, it wasn't killing civilians when we bombed all those cities." They most certainly did not-they offered as a defense to the Japanese and Germans the fact that the Allies had used the same tactics in war crimes trials. They did not conclude that German carpet bombing was somehow not a war crime; they simply refused to convict the Germans of crimes that the Allies had also committed, noting that it would be blatantly hypocritical.
You might have a point if allied bombers had anywhere near the accuracy of a Hamas suicide bomber, and if they had used that accuracy to kill as many civilians as they possibly could while avoiding military targets.
The allies couldn't pick and choose which building to destroy, or even which city block. They surely wanted such accuracy, and they went to great lengths to try to acquire it. If they had succeeded, there is no doubt that they would have used the accuracy to target military facilities and leave the civilians alone. It goes back to the quote from the allied bombing campaign commander, "For lack of a scalpel we had to use a bludgeon."
Suicide bombers have that scalpel. They can pick and choose where they want to explode themselves. If they use their discrimination to deliberately seek out civilians and ignore the military targets, then they're simply engaging in murder. Such actions are indefensible even in wartime. If instead they tried to use their suicide bombs to attack military targets, then I'd be much more willing to accept it.
Terrorists like Hamas aren't interested in attacking military targets, they seek to murder civilians. They aren't trying to wage a war, they're trying to commit mass murder. It would be a genocidei f they could carry it off successfully.
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Here's something to consider: after WWII was won in each theater, the allies went to tremendous lengths to provide aide and to rebuild the very people they had just defeated. The implications are clear. Destroying the enemy population was never a goal.
Can anyone imagine Hamas trying to aide Israeli civilians and rebuild Israeli infrastructure after a similarly devastating war?
No?
Why not?
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"If they had succeeded, there is no doubt that they would have used the accuracy to target military facilities and leave the civilians alone"
then how would you rationalize the use of the term "unhousing the population"?
or dropping over 500 k bomblets on a city? and accidentally detroying it
Can anyone imagine Hamas trying to aide Israeli civilians and rebuild Israeli infrastructure after a similarly devastating war?
No?
Why not?
er because there is no way they could muster the detructive force to do the devastation? and if they won and took the territory they would rebuild for obvious reasons
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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1180527966693&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
All civilians living in Gaza are collectively guilty for Kassam attacks on Sderot, former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu has written in a letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Former Sephardi chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu.
Photo: Courtesy
Slideshow: Pictures of the week Eliyahu ruled that there was absolutely no moral prohibition against the indiscriminate killing of civilians during a potential massive military offensive on Gaza aimed at stopping the rocket launchings.
The letter, published in Olam Katan [Small World], a weekly pamphlet to be distributed in synagogues nationwide this Friday, cited the biblical story of the Shechem massacre (Genesis 34) and Maimonides' commentary (Laws of Kings 9, 14) on the story as proof texts for his legal decision.
According to Jewish war ethics, wrote Eliyahu, an entire city holds collective responsibility for the immoral behavior of individuals. In Gaza, the entire populace is responsible because they do nothing to stop the firing of Kassam rockets.
The former chief rabbi also said it was forbidden to risk the lives of Jews in Sderot or the lives of IDF soldiers for fear of injuring or killing Palestinian noncombatants living in Gaza.
Eliyahu could not be reached for an interview. However, Eliyahu's son, Shmuel Eliyahu, who is chief rabbi of Safed, said his father opposed a ground troop incursion into Gaza that would endanger IDF soldiers. Rather, he advocated carpet bombing the general area from which the Kassams were launched, regardless of the price in Palestinian life.
"If they don't stop after we kill 100, then we must kill a thousand," said Shmuel Eliyahu. "And if they do not stop after 1,000 then we must kill 10,000. If they still don't stop we must kill 100,000, even a million. Whatever it takes to make them stop."
In the letter, Eliyahu quoted from Psalms. "I will pursue my enemies and apprehend them and I will not desist until I have eradicated them."
Eliyahu wrote that "This is a message to all leaders of the Jewish people not to be compassionate with those who shoot [rockets] at civilians in their houses."
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http://www.rawa.org/s-kill2.htm
a bit more current us bombing work
Carpet bombing 'kills 150 civilians' in frontline town
THE INDEPENDENT, London, November 19, 2001
By Justin Huggler in Cheshma-ye Bangi
An Afghan man lifts the head of a child who along with 11 other civilians died during US air raids in Kabul on October 28, 2001, witnesses said a man and his seven children were killed when a bomb crashed through their home. (AP photo)
More photos
A catastrophic error by carpet-bombing US Air Force warplanes was blamed yesterday for the deaths of about 150 unarmed Afghan civilians in a densely populated frontline town caught up in the battle for the Taliban redoubt of Kunduz.
Terrified refugees fleeing the town of Khanabad yesterday told The Independent that American planes had bombed the area a few miles from Kunduz daily since Thursday, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the buildings they were bombing were civilian homes. All day yesterday, huge plumes of smoke rose from the hills on the front lines near the Taliban's last northern stronghold as B-52 bombers continued to drop their loads of bombs.
"I saw 20 dead children on the streets," said Zumeray, one of the refugees.
"Forty people were killed yesterday alone. I saw it with my own eyes. Some of them were burned by the bombs, others were crushed by the walls and roofs of their houses when they collapsed from the blast."
The relentless US pounding appears to have persuaded the Taliban forces to surrender, provided the Northern Alliance fighters pledge not to kill the mostly Arab and Pakistani fighters among them. The Taliban offer was conditional on UN representatives monitoring the surrender, they said.
The still-unverified reports of the killing of civilians by US bombers may further complicate attempts to flush out Taliban and al-Qa'ida fighters. The Taliban have also remained in control in their southern stronghold, Kandahar, while US jets continued to pound them from the skies. The bombing raids over the past two days were described as among the heaviest in 43 days of war.
Khanabad lies 10 miles from Kunduz, one of only two major population centres in Afghanistan still under Taliban control. The refugees said they had endured three days of bombing before the Taliban ordered them out of their homes and told them they were free to cross the front line.
About 40,000 people live in Khanabad. The refugees said all but a few, who stayed behind to guard the houses, fled yesterday. "There was no one in Khanabad to see what happened," said Farhod, 20, who was travelling with his parents and his younger brothers and sisters. "There are a lot of dead people there."
Zumeray had walked across the front line with his mother, his sister and her children, after abandoning three months' worth of food in Khanabad. The children had no shoes; they had been walking for seven hours and their feet were raw.
He spoke of seeing pieces of burned black bodies strewn around where the bombs had landed. "When the bombs hit, there was fire everywhere," he said. The first bombs came on Thursday, he said, and the first house hit belonged to a man called Agha Padar.
"It was God who brought this on Khanabad," said Farhod. "The people there have had to suffer so much. We had so many problems when the Taliban came, and now this.
"This is the work of the Taliban," said Zumeray, insisting that he was not angry with the Americans. "The Taliban were so cruel, and God brought the Americans to help us."
The refugees' faces were full of fear. They walked all day, a steady stream of families fleeing their homes. Some had newborn babies in their arms. They all told the same story. As they spoke, B-52s circled lazily overhead and the huge explosions of the bombs echoed in the mountains. The children grew nervous at the sound.
While most support the attacks on the Taliban, one man shouted angrily that the Americans were wrong to kill civilians
Bombings kill 1,000 around Kunduz: Report AFP
HINDUSTAN TIMES, November 19, 2001
(Islamabad, November 19) More than 1,000 people were killed by US airstrikes around the Taliban-held city of Kunduz over the weekend, a newspaper here reported on Monday, quoting a militia commander.
The commander, Mulla Fazil, told the daily Dawn by satellite phone that heavy pounding from the air had killed some 800 people in the Kunduz area in northern Afghanistan and 250 in nearby Khanabad district.
Fazil gave the air attacks as the chief reason for a decision by the Taliban to surrender Kunduz if the handover to the victorious Northern Alliance forces could be conducted under UN supervision.
With thousands of Taliban troops backed by hardcore Chechen, Arab and Pakistani loyalists making a stand at Kunduz, US-52 bombers and fighters have intensified their attacks in recent days
did we kill more civilians there than taliban?
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what military equipment? and in a most holy miracle in a raid spanning 14 hours with more than 500 k individual fire bomblets the rail yard was spared. pure luck that?
It was not spared, the USAAF had several raids - and would have several more after the raid you are on about - bombing the marshalling yards. During nighttime, even at that stage of the war, aiming for anything smaller than a city (especially inland) was asking a great deal of most of Bomber Command.
I suggest you read the report into the attack which explains in the required amount of detail why it was not a war crime:
http://www.airforcehistory.hq.af.mil/PopTopics/dresden.htm
As for the comparison between the Dresden raid and Hamas, its a senseless one for the reasons already described.
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the last wave of that raid was at 10:30 am how dark is it in germany at that time of day?
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the last wave of that raid was at 10:30 am how dark is it in germany at that time of day?
I would like to see a source for that - Wikipedia says the second (of two) waves of the (RAF) Main Force bombed between 01:21 and 01:45.
The raid you call "the last wave" was in fact the start of the USAAF raid, which was so accurately aimed at civilians that 60 bombers bombed Prague, others bombed Pilsen, and the rest (who bombed from then until some time after midday) either aimed for the marshalling yards or bombed blind on H2X.
Not taking the piss here, but you do know that for most of WW2 the USAAF bombed during the day, and the RAF bombed at night?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II#The_night_of_13.2F14_February
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The night raid by the RAF Bomber Command was intended to devastate the city area itself and thereby choke communications within the city and disrupt the normal civilian life upon which the larger communications activities and the manufacturing enterprises of the city depended and thats from the piece you linked to. written by the folks who dropped the bombs and written in reply to the "communists expoiting the raid" pardon my skepticism
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The night raid by the RAF Bomber Command was intended to devastate the city area itself and thereby choke communications within the city and disrupt the normal civilian life upon which the larger communications activities and the manufacturing enterprises of the city depended and thats from the piece you linked to. written by the folks who dropped the bombs and written in reply to the "communists expoiting the raid" pardon my skepticism
They aimed for the city because that was the smallest thing they were able to reliably hit.
You arent being skeptical, you are just being wrong.
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i will comment that its remarkable that there is a need to explain reduce and mitigate the german casualtys. there is no such drive with casualtys in japan . why is that? and indeed thats a rhetorical question
all they could hit?the fire was visible from 500 miles from 60 on the ground the pathfinders in second wave just dropped markers on the side of the conflagration the smoke went to 15000 feet
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i will comment that its remarkable that there is a need to explain reduce and mitigate the german casualtys. there is no such drive with casualtys in japan . why is that? and indeed thats a rhetorical question
all they could hit?the fire was visible from 500 miles from 60 on the ground the pathfinders in second wave just dropped markers on the side of the conflagration the smoke went to 15000 feet
I dont know where you get the idea that there is no need to explain/reduce/mitigate Japanese casualties due to strategic bombing in WW2 - certainly I can remember more than a few discussions on the subject here and elsewhere, and as for "all they could hit" - thats the point, the Pathfinders dropped, the fire started, and everyone else just aimed for the fire. Thats what happened in London in 1940, in Hamburg in 1943 and at Dresden and Pforzheim in 1945.
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you know i don't have a problem with the tactic all the pc bs trying to justify it is disingenous at best. at least sherman was honest about it. war is about hurting the other guy real bad. doing that usually gets fewer on your side dead. trying to put lipstick on that dead pig is more shameful than the killing
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you know i don't have a problem with the tactic all the pc bs trying to justify it is disingenous at best. at least sherman was honest about it. war is about hurting the other guy real bad. doing that usually gets fewer on your side dead. trying to put lipstick on that dead pig is more shameful than the killing
Its not "pc bs". There will be a time when that kind of attack is justified, and necessary. Dresden was both of those things. Hell, there will be a time when what the IDF has done to Gaza would be justified, its just this was not one of those times.
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You might have a point if allied bombers had anywhere near the accuracy of a Hamas suicide bomber, and if they had used that accuracy to kill as many civilians as they possibly could while avoiding military targets.
The allies couldn't pick and choose which building to destroy, or even which city block. They surely wanted such accuracy, and they went to great lengths to try to acquire it. If they had succeeded, there is no doubt that they would have used the accuracy to target military facilities and leave the civilians alone. It goes back to the quote from the allied bombing campaign commander, "For lack of a scalpel we had to use a bludgeon."
Yeah, except the allies recognised the practice as a war crime. They could most certainly pick, say, a few blocks over an entire city.
Your theory here in any case faces the same problem: If Hamas makes a rocket that isn't that accurate, and then gets 20,000 of them, does that make Hamas rocket fire justifiable as a means of wiping out whole cities?
I guess you don't think the rocket fire is a war crime? Oh wait...I'm sure that you do, and there goes your whole theory.
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Yeah, except the allies recognised the practice as a war crime. They could most certainly pick, say, a few blocks over an entire city.
This is incorrect. There were some units that could practice targetted attacks (usually after becoming really familiar with their target) but the vast majority of both the USAAF and (especially, given that they bombed at night) the RAF were nowhere near that accurate - which is why bombing even late in the war was often scattered over a wide area (as was the case with Dresden).
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Yeah, except the allies recognised the practice as a war crime. They could most certainly pick, say, a few blocks over an entire city.
Your theory here in any case faces the same problem: If Hamas makes a rocket that isn't that accurate, and then gets 20,000 of them, does that make Hamas rocket fire justifiable as a means of wiping out whole cities?
I guess you don't think the rocket fire is a war crime? Oh wait...I'm sure that you do, and there goes your whole theory.
For my part, I never thought the rocket fire was a war crime, but an act of war.
Suicide bombings are war crimes as well as acts of war.
I have no problem if Gaza wants to make war on Israel. (Other than war being a bad thing). It seems the world opinion has no problem with this as well.
They only have problems when Israel makes war back. That's blatant hypocrisy.
If the Gazans don't want war, they should stop making war.
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Yeah, except the allies recognised the practice as a war crime. They could most certainly pick, say, a few blocks over an entire city.
Your theory here in any case faces the same problem: If Hamas makes a rocket that isn't that accurate, and then gets 20,000 of them, does that make Hamas rocket fire justifiable as a means of wiping out whole cities?
I guess you don't think the rocket fire is a war crime? Oh wait...I'm sure that you do, and there goes your whole theory.
If Hamas does their level best to make their rockets accurate, and if they use them to attack military targets, then I'd be willing to accept the practice, even if they occasionally missed and hit civilians. It would certainly be an act of war, as mak says, but not a war crime.
My perception of Hamas is that they're targeting civilians only and trying to avoid military targets. Perhaps Micro can speak more to that, but the areas the rockets are aimed at don't seem to have an redeeming military value whatsoever.
It rapidly becomes clear that the goal of Hamas' rocket fire isn't to wage war, but to try to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible. I could be wrong about that, but that's how it appears. That isn't war, that's attempted genocide.
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If Hamas does their level best to make their rockets accurate, and if they use them to attack military targets, then I'd be willing to accept the practice, even if they occasionally missed and hit civilians. It would certainly be an act of war, as mak says, but not a war crime.
My perception of Hamas is that they're targeting civilians only and trying to avoid military targets. Perhaps Micro can speak more to that, but the areas the rockets are aimed at don't seem to have an redeeming military value whatsoever.
It rapidly becomes clear that the goal of Hamas' rocket fire isn't to wage war, but to try to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible. I could be wrong about that, but that's how it appears. If so, that isn't war, that's genocide.
That is somewhat circular logic. Hamas cannot improve their rockets nor can they get more accurate ones because of the blockade, and the rockets are totally unable to be targetted in a manner to differentiate between military and civilian targets. Are you suggesting that Hamas be provided with more accurate weaponry?
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"It rapidly becomes clear that the goal of Hamas' rocket fire isn't to wage war, but to try to kill as many Israeli civilians as possible. I could be wrong about that, but that's how it appears. If so, that isn't war, that's genocide."
isn't genocide trying to wipe the other guy out? i think hamas is trying to follow the sucessful ira model. force the other guy to negotiate more on your terms inorder to end the harassment and unhappyness of the general public. takes very few folks to bring a bigger force to the table. that phone call after they just missed thatcher with the bomb plastered in the wall is classic
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That is somewhat circular logic. Hamas cannot improve their rockets nor can they get more accurate ones because of the blockade, and the rockets are totally unable to be targetted in a manner to differentiate between military and civilian targets. Are you suggesting that Hamas be provided with more accurate weaponry?
How is that circular? All I'm saying is that Hamas should do their level best to go after military targets rather than civilians. By all appearances they're doing the exact opposite, trying to hit the civilians while ignoring the military.
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How is that circular? All I'm saying is that Hamas should do their level best to go after military targets rather than civilians. By all appearances they're doing the exact opposite, trying to hit the civilians while ignoring the military.
They have been - the Israeli casualties during the fighting were 13, of which 10 were soldiers (4 were killed by the IDF), and they have historically tried to go after the IDF as the capture of Shalit and numerous other incidents have demonstrated. The rocket fire, as has been said, really lacks the capacity to distinguish between military and civilian because of the crudeness of the weapon.
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They have been - the Israeli casualties during the fighting were 13, of which 10 were soldiers (4 were killed by the IDF), and they have historically tried to go after the IDF as the capture of Shalit and numerous other incidents have demonstrated. The rocket fire, as has been said, really lacks the capacity to distinguish between military and civilian because of the crudeness of the weapon.
And the suicide bombers, I suppose they hadn't any guidance system, either.
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They have been - the Israeli casualties during the fighting were 13, of which 10 were soldiers (4 were killed by the IDF), and they have historically tried to go after the IDF as the capture of Shalit and numerous other incidents have demonstrated. The rocket fire, as has been said, really lacks the capacity to distinguish between military and civilian because of the crudeness of the weapon.
My understanding is that the Israeli military casualties have been due to close quarters small arms fire, not the rockets. I could be wrong, bit I'm still convinced that Hamas havs been doing their best to kill civilians, not spare them, with their rockets.
And there remains the issue of the suicide bombs...
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And the suicide bombers, I suppose they hadn't any guidance system, either.
As explained earlier, its a lot easier to get into a pizza parlour than it is a barracks.
My understanding is that the Israeli military casualties have been due to close quarters small arms fire, not the rockets. I could be wrong, bit I'm still convinced that Hamas havs been doing their best to kill civilians, not spare them, with their rockets.
And there remains the issue of the suicide bombs...
Sorry, my reply was meant to show that they have fought the IDF, and not exclusively gone after civilians. As for the rockets themselves, remember that is their only method of attacking Israel on a strategic level (the rockets themselves are not strategic, but the Israeli response has made them so).
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As explained earlier, its a lot easier to get into a pizza parlour than it is a barracks.
Excuse me as I laugh madly.
There are so many ways a suicide bomber could ]easily attack IDF troops because of the way the Army functions - and HAS to function - it's not even funny.
Not sure it would be responsible for me to discuss the details of such a technique here.
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As explained earlier, its a lot easier to get into a pizza parlour than it is a barracks.
Remember that when they start doing it in the UK. Since you're so excusing of that.
I'd show the picture of a blown-up cafe with a blood-covered baby stroller right next to where the bomber blew themselves up, but you'd probably make an excuse for that, too.
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psst! the uk has some experience they mortared downing street . missed thatcher by minutes at that hotel with a bomb plastered in plasce more than a month earlier. asnd quite a few smaller bombs from the ira
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psst! the uk has some experience they mortared downing street . missed thatcher by minutes at that hotel with a bomb plastered in plasce more than a month earlier. asnd quite a few smaller bombs from the ira
Yes, I am quite aware of the IRA's history, thank you. I'm not sure what your point is.
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Sorry, my reply was meant to show that they have fought the IDF, and not exclusively gone after civilians. As for the rockets themselves, remember that is their only method of attacking Israel on a strategic level (the rockets themselves are not strategic, but the Israeli response has made them so).
Maybe I should spell it out. The circumstances of the deaths (close quarters, small arms) and the circumstances of the war indicate that Israel lost a few soldiers int he process of attacking Hamas in Gaza. It does not mean that Hamas attacked sIraeli military targets.
Let's be direct about it. Can you name any offensive move Hamas has made, any attack at all, except to fire rockets at civilians?
As for strategy, how has it worked for Hamas so far? It got them invaded and overrun and defeated. It got probably hundreds of their own civilians killed in the crossfire. Unless that was their goal, it's fair to say it's been a wretched strategy.
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Remember that when they start doing it in the UK. Since you're so excusing of that.
I'd show the picture of a blown-up cafe with a blood-covered baby stroller right next to where the bomber blew themselves up, but you'd probably make an excuse for that, too.
We have had suicide bombings, as well as "regular" terrorism. Ironically enough, both types of terrorists tend to go for the easier target - as the citizens of Warrington and Omagh found to their cost. To point this out is not excusing it.
Let's be direct about it. Can you name any offensive move Hamas has made, any attack at all, except to fire rockets at civilians?
Yes. The attack on Shalit's unit.
As for strategy, how has it worked for Hamas so far? It got them invaded and overrun and defeated. It got probably hundreds of their own civilians killed in the crossfire. Unless that was their goal, it's fair to say it's been a wretched strategy.
Defeated? Last I looked they were still in control of the Gaza Strip, still able to fire rockets and will probably achieve more of their aims in the forthcoming peace than the Israelis will. An odd defeat that.
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Yes. The attack on Shalit's unit.
Ok, that's certainly true. There'sf one instance where Hamas attacked the Israeli military rather than civilians.
Defeated? Last I looked they were still in control of the Gaza Strip, still able to fire rockets and will probably achieve more of their aims in the forthcoming peace than the Israelis will. An odd defeat that.
I doubt Hamas has anywhere near the same ability to launch rockets as they did a month ago. They are indeed still in control of Gaza, but that's not victory, it's merely survival. Future concessions in peace negotiations? We'll just have to wait and see. Personally, I don't think launching thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians is going to make Israel any more charitable towards Hamas.
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Ok, that's certainly true. There'sf one instance where Hamas attacked the Israeli military rather than civilians.
I doubt Hamas has anywhere near the same ability to launch rockets as they did a month ago. They are indeed still in control of Gaza, but that's not victory, it's merely survival. Future concessions in peace negotiations? We'll just have to wait and see. Personally, I don't think launching thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians is going to make Israel any more charitable towards Hamas.
If launching rockets at Israel isn't going to make Israel more charitable, why would you believe that killing thousands of people in Gaza is going to make the Palestinians more likely to concede more in future negotiations?
I think it's quite clear that the past 20 years of Israeli policy have done the opposite-neither the Palestinians nor the Arab public around them are any longer willing to consider this state as a normal part of the region.
The biggest fault in Israeli policy on this that I can see is that they mistake tolerance by Arab governments for progress-the Arab governments aren't going to be there in 20 years, but the resentment over this killing will.
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If launching rockets at Israel isn't going to make Israel more charitable, why would you believe that killing thousands of people in Gaza is going to make the Palestinians more likely to concede more in future negotiations?
The Israeli public by at large (and the current government) doesn't want them to 'concede more'. We've been willing to vacate the West Bank and parts of 'Jerusalem' entirely for ages, and to allow them their independence, as well as to either allow refugees back into the Green Line or to compensate them monetarily. All we want is for them to guarantee to stop shooting the rockets and blowing themselves up. Time and time the issue in negotiations had been that people are unwilling to sign an agreement and say, "here, this is the final agreement, we're satisfied now, the conflict is over."
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The Israeli public by at large (and the current government) doesn't want them to 'concede more'. We've been willing to vacate the West Bank and parts of 'Jerusalem' entirely for ages, and to allow them their independence, as well as to either allow refugees back into the Green Line or to compensate them monetarily. All we want is for them to guarantee to stop shooting the rockets and blowing themselves up. Time and time the issue in negotiations had been that people are unwilling to sign an agreement and say, "here, this is the final agreement, we're satisfied now, the conflict is over."
Which leads us to the impasse we have now. All of the peace deals that have been on offer have not been acceptable to them, and Israel isnt willing to offer a peace deal that would be acceptable. So the violence continues.
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The Israeli public by at large (and the current government) doesn't want them to 'concede more'. We've been willing to vacate the West Bank and parts of 'Jerusalem' entirely for ages, and to allow them their independence, as well as to either allow refugees back into the Green Line or to compensate them monetarily. All we want is for them to guarantee to stop shooting the rockets and blowing themselves up. Time and time the issue in negotiations had been that people are unwilling to sign an agreement and say, "here, this is the final agreement, we're satisfied now, the conflict is over."
When did the Israeli government enact a freeze on settlement building in the West Bank? That would seem to be a key sign of "willing to abandon the West Bank".
Can you see how the Palestinians might get the idea that your government doesn't actually want out of the west bank when it builds houses for hundreds of thousands of people there, and continues to build them?
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Look. The people here, by a wide majority, elected a party that was comitted to leaving the West Bank without negotiation. Every single Israeli political party all the way up to Beitenu agrees the West Bank must be handed over. Only retards like MAFDAL actually argue about that.
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Ceasefire broken (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3659500,00.html)
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Ceasefire broken (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3659500,00.html)
I can't wait to see how Israel is at fault for this.
Shaky ceasefire in Gaza: Palestinian terrorists fired eight mortar shells from the central Gaza Strip Tuesday, the army said. However, it appears all shells landed in Palestinian areas, possibly due to a malfunction.
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Look. The people here, by a wide majority, elected a party that was comitted to leaving the West Bank without negotiation. Every single Israeli political party all the way up to Beitenu agrees the West Bank must be handed over. Only retards like MAFDAL actually argue about that.
And yet, as SS notes, there is something entirely opposite to that happening on the ground.
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I can't wait to see how Israel is at fault for this.
Obviously it was Israels dirty sabotage that made those mortars fall short! In fact they aren't really mortars they're fireworks launchers! Israel ruined a great childrens celebration.
OK I feel dirty now...
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does firing into your own people count as breaking the cease fire?
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does firing into your own people count as breaking the cease fire?
Not if you assume they were aiming at them deliberately. Why would tey do that?
Also:
Smuggling resumes (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3660022,00.html)
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Not if you assume they were aiming at them deliberately. Why would tey do that?
Also:
Smuggling resumes (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3660022,00.html)
Were they prevented from smuggling by the articles of the ceasefire that was agreed?
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Not if you assume they were aiming at them deliberately. Why would tey do that?
Also:
Smuggling resumes (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3660022,00.html)
Now they're thinking that they're trying to get Fajr missiles in, based on intel they'd gotten from stuff that's leaving Iran.
Those can hit Tel Aviv.
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"Were they prevented from smuggling by the articles of the ceasefire that was agreed?"
As if people who use their women and children for cannon fodder would abide by an agreement.
You were joking here, no? You are not that naive are you?
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"Were they prevented from smuggling by the articles of the ceasefire that was agreed?"
As if people who use their women and children for cannon fodder would abide by an agreement.
You were joking here, no? You are not that naive are you?
No. That said, no ceasefire agreement was ever agreed, so thanks for biting.
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so you wont complain when Israel resumes the ass kickery?
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Look. The people here, by a wide majority, elected a party that was comitted to leaving the West Bank without negotiation. Every single Israeli political party all the way up to Beitenu agrees the West Bank must be handed over. Only retards like MAFDAL actually argue about that.
So what's the theory behind building settlements for a few hundred thousand people? They just plan on demolishing all that when it's done, or are they going to leave the settlers to the PA?
It makes no sense to claim that Israel is intent on leaving the West Bank when it's literally got 1 in 12 of its entire population settled there via a destroy-Palestinian areas and build Jewish-only homes in their place.
Maybe you can tell us more about settlement building policy-as far as the sources available in the english speaking world show, the settlement building has continued apace.
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So what's the theory behind building settlements for a few hundred thousand people? They just plan on demolishing all that when it's done, or are they going to leave the settlers to the PA?
People are building settlements for a few hundred thousand people? The current government?
Are you implying the government plans to double the size of the settlements? How? Where?
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People are building settlements for a few hundred thousand people? The current government?
Are you implying the government plans to double the size of the settlements? How? Where?
No, I'm saying the government has added to the already built areas that house a few hundred thousand people, who amount to approximately 1 in 12 of your country's entire population.
All that has been built, and the government continues to add to it, yet the Palestinians are supposed to see this obvious fact that the Israeli government plans on leaving the west bank?
Didn't the head of Yisrael Beitenu just call for expelling all the Arabs from Israel too? Or was that just a call to ban them from running in any elections?
You have to at least be able to understand why outside observers would find the claims by the Israeli government that it would accept the 67 line to be lacking in credibility.
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Didn't the head of Yisrael Beitenu just call for expelling all the Arabs from Israel too?
No.
Or was that just a call to ban them from running in any elections?
No... the man is a racist shmuck, but even he doesn't go quite that far.
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No, I'm saying the government has added to the already built areas that house a few hundred thousand people, who amount to approximately 1 in 12 of your country's entire population.
All that has been built, and the government continues to add to it, yet the Palestinians are supposed to see this obvious fact that the Israeli government plans on leaving the west bank?
Didn't the head of Yisrael Beitenu just call for expelling all the Arabs from Israel too? Or was that just a call to ban them from running in any elections?
You have to at least be able to understand why outside observers would find the claims by the Israeli government that it would accept the 67 line to be lacking in credibility.
You might want to get your "facts" from sites that carry actual facts. I'm not sure where you're getting those ideas, radical islamist boards, Al-Jazeera or what, but they have no basis in reality.
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You might want to get your "facts" from sites that carry actual facts. I'm not sure where you're getting those ideas, radical islamist boards, Al-Jazeera or what, but they have no basis in reality.
How about the Jerusalem Post?
Except for a very short period during the Rabin era after Oslo, the Palestinians have never believed that Israel was really ready for peace. The continuation of building and expanding settlements and bypass roads for settlers confirms for Palestinians that there never was an intention to withdraw from the West Bank. How could they understand anything different? Both at the public level and at the level of policy planning, no answer was ever provided for the contradiction between settlement expansion and future withdrawal.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231866575327&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
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How about the Jerusalem Post?
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231866575327&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Face it agricola: there will never be an answer to this question because no flattering answer is possible.
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How about the Jerusalem Post?
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231866575327&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Idiocy. There's been several hundred homes built in the settlements that are due to 'natural growth'. But overall the government has an anti-settlement policy which no sane man can deny.
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Idiocy. There's been several hundred homes built in the settlements that are due to 'natural growth'. But overall the government has an anti-settlement policy which no sane man can deny.
So you would say, unequivocally, that the government will destroy the settlements?
where's the evidence of this policy?
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So you would say, unequivocally, that the government will destroy the settlements?
where's the evidence of this policy?
Let me put it this way:
Ten years from now, the settlements are not going to be there any more.
Hopefully, however, Kadima will not be the ones to do it.