war in Gaza

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a big Israel fan but I know that Israel isn't calling for any other country's demise like some are towards Isreal.

You know what I've noticed? That those of us who condemn the IDF's atrocities against Gazans always, always, always emphasize that we do not condone terror and we want Israeli citizens to be safe and unharmed.

The posters who come on here with a one-off "but what about Hamas's charter" and comments like the above don't say a blessed thing about the slaughter of Palestinians. It's always "well, they say bad things about Israel, so.... " Yes, go on, I'm all ears - so what? Shall I finish for you? You know that Israel isn't calling for any other country's demise, therefore ...the slaughter of Palestinian children is okay? it's okay for the IDF to use Palestinian civilians as human shields? (oh those bad, bad UN people, calling out the IDF again http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/13/gaza-israel-war-crimes) it's okay to use white phosphorus, it's okay to impose collective punishment - what? Is that the kind of stuff you mean? If not, please clarify.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a big Israel fan but I know that Israel isn't calling for any other country's demise like some are towards Isreal.

You know what I've noticed? That those of us who condemn the IDF's atrocities against Gazans always, always, always emphasize that we do not condone terror and we want Israeli citizens to be safe and unharmed.

The posters who come on here with a one-off "but what about Hamas's charter" and comments like the above don't say a blessed thing about the slaughter of Palestinians. It's always "well, they say bad things about Israel, so.... " Yes, go on, I'm all ears - so what? Shall I finish for you? You know that Israel isn't calling for any other country's demise, therefore ...the slaughter of Palestinian children is okay? it's okay for the IDF to use Palestinian civilians as human shields? (oh those bad, bad UN people, calling out the IDF again http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/13/gaza-israel-war-crimes) it's okay to use white phosphorus, it's okay to impose collective punishment - what? Is that the kind of stuff you mean? If not, please clarify.

Israel wants to see the demise of Palestine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
True, countries should not call for the demise of another country. But it doesn't justify bombing innocent people in order to get to their political leaders.

Did we miss the part where Hamas hides among the very innocent women and children they are supposed to be advocating for, bating the Israelis do "catch me if you can"?

I don't find the thread anti-Semitic per se, rather it is very slanted anti-Israeli/pro-Palestinian. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but lets call it as it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
True, countries should not call for the demise of another country. But it doesn't justify bombing innocent people in order to get to their political leaders.

Did we miss the part where Hamas hides among the very innocent women and children they are supposed to be advocating for, bating the Israelis do "catch me if you can"?

I don't find the thread anti-Semitic per se, rather it is very slanted anti-Israeli/pro-Palestinian. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but lets call it as it is.

Okay, Gaza has three times the population of DC and twice the area. So it's more dense than the District.

I live three blocks from the Navy Yard. Is the Navy Yard hiding behind human shields since it is in a residential area? I live six blocks from the Marine Barracks which is right by a popular restaurant district in Capitol Hill. Are the Marines hiding among innocent women and children? Are they cowards using human shields?

When you make that kind of argument, you are, in essence, saying it is okay for a foreign invader to bomb my house and kill my family by accident because the Navy Yard and the Marines are to blame. To continue the Gaza analogy, they'd have to move to Rock Creek Park in order to get away from the civilian population but they couldn't get very far away even then.

Hmmm, never realized that Marines were such cowards but now I realize that all along they've been using my family to shield themselves. Jerks.

Thanks for that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: rather it is very slanted anti-Israeli/pro-Palestinian. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but lets call it as it is.

I find the slaughter very one-sided, with a 100:1 ratio, to be precise. It is an abomination that this is what it takes for people to actually say, hey, something is really wrong here.

So forgive me if I'm not too broken up over your perception of this thread's "slantedness".

[Anonymous]

So because Isreal is fighting back and standing up for themselves in a much more larger scale, they're the bad guys? oh okay.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:So because Isreal is fighting back and standing up for themselves in a much more larger scale, they're the bad guys? oh okay.

Does killing over 250 children make you a good guy?

Would you consider the possibility that Israel had multiple options to address the problem of Gaza, but chose to use overwhelming military force which, given the realities of Gaza, guaranteed the killing of large numbers of civilians?

Early in the attack on Gaza, Israel choose to bomb the house of a Hamas military leader. At the time, his home was filled with family members, including several children. Israel launched the attack knowing that many women and children would be killed. In effect, the entire attack on Gaza is the same sort of thing on a larger scale. The children being killed in Gaza are not being killed accidentally. They are being killed as part of a policy that calculated their deaths as acceptable. And, yes, having made such a calculation, Israel is the bad guy as far as I'm concerned. As would be any country that decided children were expendable.

[Anonymous]

If the Hamas leader is going to hide among women and children, knowing he is a legitimate target, then he bears responsibility for their deaths as well. Hamas' larger strategy is to do do just that, banking on Israel's well-known compunction at shedding innocent life. This time it appears Hamas miscalculated, and Israel is defending itself.

[Anonymous]

on biased reporting from western media : http://beirutreport.blogspot.com/2009/01/false-parrallels-in-gaza.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If the Hamas leader is going to hide among women and children, knowing he is a legitimate target, then he bears responsibility for their deaths as well. Hamas' larger strategy is to do do just that, banking on Israel's well-known compunction at shedding innocent life. This time it appears Hamas miscalculated, and Israel is defending itself.

And doing such a wonderful job -- rockets continue to fall on Israel. This looks like Lebanon all over again. A failed strategy which will hurt Israel more than it will help it, all in the service of the political ambitions of conservative politicians running for office.

[Anonymous]

Did we miss the part where Hamas hides among the very innocent women and children they are supposed to be advocating for, bating the Israelis do "catch me if you can"?

I don't find the thread anti-Semitic per se, rather it is very slanted anti-Israeli/pro-Palestinian. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but lets call it as it is.

Call it a slant, if you must, but that is hardly an argument that answers the question as to what Israel is hoping to accomplish with this war, and whether they bear moral responsibility for the killing of innocent civilians in that war.

This article from Haaeretz is worth reading - the author makes a direct connection to the war in Gaza and upcoming elections in Israel. Very, very cynical - the killings of hundreds of civilians with no true goal in mind other than winning an election.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054578.html

"The public, moral and judicial test will be applied to the three Israeli statesmen who sent the Israel Defense Forces to war against a helpless population, one that did not even have a place to take refuge, in maybe the only war in history against a strip of land enclosed by a fence. Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will stand at the forefront of the guilty. Two of them are candidates for prime minister, the third is a candidate for criminal indictment. "

[Anonymous]

I still don't get why Hamas sends rockets into Israel. Wouldn't international opinion be more on their side if they protested peacefully, like MLK Jr. or Gandhi?

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:If the Hamas leader is going to hide among women and children, knowing he is a legitimate target, then he bears responsibility for their deaths as well. Hamas' larger strategy is to do do just that, banking on Israel's well-known compunction at shedding innocent life. This time it appears Hamas miscalculated, and Israel is defending itself.

The Hamas leader was not hiding among women and children. He was in his own home. His home was not a Hamas institution. I'm sorry to say but you are a damn fool if you think that Israel has any compunction at shedding innocent life. Have you heard of Deir Yassin? Over 100 Palestinian villagers killed in 1948. The King David Hotel? An act of terrorism that killed many civilians (including many Jews) undertaken by Menachem Begin. The Massacre of Kibya? Kafr Qassem? Sabra and Shatilla? I could fill pages with examples of "Israel's well-known compunction at shedding innocent life". And, all the while, people like you turn your head and offer justifications.

[Anonymous]

Those who keep asking why Hamas continues to fire rockets seem to see this conflict as a war between equal forces rather than a strong occupying force with overwhelming military capacity attacking a relatively powerless enemy.

The humanitarian crisis is shocking, and one-sided. The suffering is 100% Palestinian suffering. The power is in the hands of the Israeli government, and they are abusing that power. There were other solutions to this problem, and Israel chose to use its military might, perhaps in an attempt to make up for their failure in Lebanon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/world/middleeast/14gaza.html

"Movement is complicated by the confusion over when it is safe to leave. When the Abu Hajaj family received a leaflet last weekend, they took it as a sign of safe passage. But Majad Abdel Karim Abu Hajaj, a teacher at a United Nations school, said his mother and sister were killed as they walked holding a white flag. Their bodies remain where they fell, he said, because ambulances cannot get to the area. "

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054899.html
"A number of Palestinians - it is not clear how many - are trapped in small enclaves surrounded by Israel Defense Forces positions in the Gaza Strip's peripheral farming areas. The soldiers shoot at anyone who tries to leave the enclaves, they said.

These people didn't manage to flee, or decided to stay home when the IDF took over the area. But they never imagined that they would be cut off from their relatives and the nearby towns and villages for so long.

Fragmented reports from such enclaves indicate that the beleaguered Palestinians are suffering from an increasing shortage of water, medicines and food. At least in one enclave, east of Jabalya, there is a cancer patient whose medication has run out, Haaretz has learned. Attempts to evacuate diabetics and elderly people from another enclave have failed. IDF troops surrounding the enclaves shoot at anyone who tries to leave. "

[Anonymous]

Anonymous* wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
True, countries should not call for the demise of another country. But it doesn't justify bombing innocent people in order to get to their political leaders.

Did we miss the part where Hamas hides among the very innocent women and children they are supposed to be advocating for, bating the Israelis do "catch me if you can"?

I don't find the thread anti-Semitic per se, rather it is very slanted anti-Israeli/pro-Palestinian. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but lets call it as it is.

Okay, Gaza has three times the population of DC and twice the area. So it's more dense than the District.

I live three blocks from the Navy Yard. Is the Navy Yard hiding behind human shields since it is in a residential area? I live six blocks from the Marine Barracks which is right by a popular restaurant district in Capitol Hill. Are the Marines hiding among innocent women and children? Are they cowards using human shields?

When you make that kind of argument, you are, in essence, saying it is okay for a foreign invader to bomb my house and kill my family by accident because the Navy Yard and the Marines are to blame. To continue the Gaza analogy, they'd have to move to Rock Creek Park in order to get away from the civilian population but they couldn't get very far away even then.

Hmmm, never realized that Marines were such cowards but now I realize that all along they've been using my family to shield themselves. Jerks.

Thanks for that!

Anonymous* - your analogy would be correct IF the Marines or naval personnel hid in your attic and launched rockets from your balcony. Or went to an elementary school property and launched rockets from there. THAT is hiding among your civilians and playing cat and mouse, only with real lives.

Why must Israel tolerate Hamas lobbing rockets into their civilian population (Hamas makes no pretext about aiming for military targets - the more Israeli civilians they can hit the better)? Because they are stronger? They have better aim? You damn Israel for defending itself without a single mention of the Hamas aggression and the failed diplomacy that led to this.

I do feel sorry for the innocent civilians on both sides; and I completely fault the Hamas fighters for deliberately acting to put their civilian population most at risk so they can gain YOUR sympathy.