Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Derec]

The urban hand to hand combat will be attempting to prevent Hamas from doing this again, by weeding them out. It would be an awful conflict.

I wonder if PA's security forces could take control of Gaza easily after IDF is done. Or will there be another civil war like in 2007? And what about other terrorist groups like Islamic Jihad and PFLP?

 

[laughing dog]

Right because if the government of Queens attacked people in Manhattan, it'd be okay with you for Manhattan to bomb Queens and give 24 hour notice to get out to civilians.

Is that really what you think I believe?

Seriously?

Yeah, it probably is. Anything else would inconvenience your ideological beliefs.

I am not using ideological beliefs to form conclusions, only what you have posted.

I disagree. You are using your ideological beliefs that posters are honest, rational and reasoning discussants who are capable of dealing with hypothetical as well as real examples to draw your conclusions.

 

[Derec]

If Queens launched violence against Manhattan it would be.
But that hasn't happened, so it's totally irrelevant.
Tom

More like if NYC launched violence against New Jersey (including 1000s of indiscriminately fired rockets and a massacre at a music festival). After all, the call is not for people of Gaza to move to Israel, but to move from one part of the Gaza Strip to the other (across Wadi Gaza/East River basically).

 

[Derec]

We thwarted a democracy movement in Iran over fears of nationalization oil.

That wasn't exactly a "democracy movement". In fact, Mosaddegh, while being democratically elected, was behaving decidedly undemocratically leading up to the coup. The theft of US and UK oil company assets is only one of the things he had done.
It's similar to Allende in Chile. He is being touted as this democrat who was deposed, but he also behaved very undemocratic toward the end.

As seems typical we seem to support the wrong people, this time the so called Shah. He was as brutal and corrupt as Hussein. I knew Iranians who suffered under him.

And yet the unmitigated evil that replaced the Shah is many orders of magnitude worse.

After the revolution the democratic movement again got thwarted, this time by the conservative clerics.

Should be a warning to not ally yourself with Islamists. Yet the Left never learns ...

It is no wonder that Iran has antipathy for the USA. The Shah was hated.

The current regime is the one that hates the US. Most people of Iran probably do not, as they hate the current regime in Tehran as well. '

But Iranian history is really a topic for another thread.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

It must be very confusing. Go south, but not too far south? Also, misinformation and rumors are probably at an all time high with no power.

 

[pood]

Israeli ambassador to U.N.: There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Meanwhile:

Gaza is running out of water: Palestinians scramble to find food, safety and water.

Is it any wonder that Israel is scorned and hated by vast numbers around the world? And no, contrary to Israel and its apologists, Israel‘s foes are not “anti-Semitic.“ They are anti-Israel, a whole different thing.

 

[Copernicus]

It's hard for me to understand how anyone here, especially atheists, could support Israel's previous position to go in within 24 hours, even though no

I don't see why you find Israel's hardass negotiating position hard to understand.
Let's face it, 24 hour notice is 24 hours more than Hamas gave Israel. And as you've pointed out, Israel has already backed off the toughest parts.

One hour of utilities per hostage release could get the Palestinians a good bit of time.
Tom

But, Tom, answer me this. Israel, unlike Hamas, is not a terrorist organization, is it? If not, what is the difference? Both sides seem to engage in terrorist acts against civilian populations.

Get a dictionary. Understand what "terrorism" actually means.

First of all, if you want to make an argument, it's up to you to get that dictionary, put up the definition you think makes your case, and explain why it doesn't also make my case. Cutting off the water supply to the civilian population of Gaza and ordering over a million civilians to flee their homes or face death--that's what you think would not be called terrorism. Let's see the definition you think would make the difference. Hamas killed a lot of civilians and took hostages. The bombs the IDF is raining down on cities in Gaza are not distinguishing combatants from civilians. Leveling city blocks is not just striking legitimate military targets. Israel is threatening to kill far more civilians, taking no hostages. In my opinion, both sides are engaged in terrorist acts against civilians.

 

[pood]

It's hard for me to understand how anyone here, especially atheists, could support Israel's previous position to go in within 24 hours, even though no

I don't see why you find Israel's hardass negotiating position hard to understand.
Let's face it, 24 hour notice is 24 hours more than Hamas gave Israel. And as you've pointed out, Israel has already backed off the toughest parts.

One hour of utilities per hostage release could get the Palestinians a good bit of time.
Tom

But, Tom, answer me this. Israel, unlike Hamas, is not a terrorist organization, is it? If not, what is the difference? Both sides seem to engage in terrorist acts against civilian populations.

Get a dictionary. Understand what "terrorism" actually means.

First of all, if you want to make an argument, it's up to you to get that dictionary, put up the definition you think makes your case, and explain why it doesn't also make my case. Cutting off the water supply to the civilian population of Gaza and ordering over a million civilians to flee their homes or faith death--that's what you think would not be called terrorism. Let's see the definition you think would make the difference. Hamas killed a lot of civilians and took hostages. The bombs it is raining down on cities in Gaza are not distinguishing combatants from civilians. Leveling city blocks is not just striking legitimate military targets. Israel is threatening to kill far more civilians, taking no hostages. In my opinion, both sides are engaged in terrorist acts against civilians.

The forced eviction under these horrifying circumstances of all these people is a WAR CRIME, full stop. Israel is committing a massive war crime while its idiot ambassador to the U.K. says everything in Gaza is just hunk-dory. Netanyahu and his entire government should be in the dock at the Hague.

WAR CRIME ONE: forced relocation of civilians from their homes.

WAR CRIME TWO: collective punishment.

WAR CRIME THREE: Indiscriminate attacks slaughtering many innocents.

 

[Copernicus]

But, Tom, answer me this. Israel, unlike Hamas, is not a terrorist organization, is it? If not, what is the difference?

There's plenty of blame to spread around concerning this vat of simmering bad blood laced with bodies.

As created, the State of Israel was a huge disaster that reeks of Euro-Colonialism. The assault of 1948 kinda sealed the deal.

The tensions that led up to Plan Dalet in 1948 began with mass protests and an uprising against British occupation and rule by Palestinian Arabs in 1936-1939. The Palestinians wanted an end to the stream of Jewish immigrants into Palestine, so that set the stage for the more systematic plan of ethnic cleansing that took place in 1948. But that was a long time ago. We can just unwind the cycle of ethnic animosity and score-settling back to those times. Europe saw Palestine as a partial solution to its "Jewish problem". Even Hitler was originally thinking of deporting all the Jews to Palestine before he conquered Poland in 1939 and discovered a population too huge to simply deport. After that, the Jews in Palestine were looking at a much more urgent need for a safe haven from the greater ethnic cleansing going on in Europe. I don't see it as just European colonialism, but also the aftermath of the Jewish Holocaust in Europe.

But no, the ugliness of this week's humanitarian disaster is not on Israel, mostly. Hamas picked it. Israel responded. Like it or not, Gazans wouldn't be without power and water if Hamas hadn't attacked last Saturday.
Tom

Like it or not, most Palestinians in Gaza did not ask for or plan that humanitarian atrocity perpetrated by the terrorists running their unelected government. The last elections there were in 1994. How were they supposed to stop Hamas from attacking Israel? Like it or not, they had no choice but to be Palestinians born into that situation. More than half the population of Gaza is under 18, and all of them are essentially condemned to live out their lives in Gaza under a quarantine put in place by Israel. BTW, water is back on, but not because the Israeli government had a change of heart. It was put under intense pressure by its US allies to restore the water. Shutting it off was an act against the civilian population of Gaza, not just Hamas.

My view of the situation is that Hamas holds two groups as hostages--the Israeli and foreign citizens it just took from Israel and the civilian population of Gaza that did not volunteer to participate in the attack on Israel. There is no way that Israel can take its revenge on just Hamas, so it must decide whether it cares about the hostages more than it cares about getting back at Hamas and perhaps punishing Gazans for the actions of a government whose actions they neither controlled nor endorsed. Right now, the Israeli government seems to consider both groups of hostages as a secondary priority. The main priority is striking back so hard that Palestinians will never think about another attack, even though all historical evidence suggests that this punishing retaliation will do nothing more than stoke the fires for future acts of revenge.

I wouldn't call it revenge. They want to destroy Hamas and possibly get the hostage back. They want to do to Hamas what the US did to Al-quada after 9-11.

You would not call what the US did to Afghanistan after 9-11 an act of revenge? We occupied Afghanistan and fought our longest war ever there. Al-Qaeda was not running any government. It was the Taliban we were getting our revenge on. For hosting the guy who had planes flown into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. We didn't really get the revenge we wanted, because the Taliban is back in charge after over two decades of fighting. But that war would not have lasted that long if revenge were not a factor in keeping it going.

I "liked" your post because you tied Israel's action today to our reaction to Afghanistan. It's hypocritical for Americans to think that Israeli response is bad; while our response was good in Afghanistan. However, to answer your question, I don't agree that it was revenge. It was justice. Al-quada deliberately attacked citizens on 9-11. After they were done, we asked Afghanistan (then a quasi ally) to either turn them over or allow us to go after them. They said no. They gave them shelter and aid. Then we took Al-Quada out. If we hadn't, those roughly 50,000 fighters would have committed many more acts of terrorism against us an others. Do you know a better way to stop terrorists? Asking them nicely dosn't seem to work.

What you consider "justice" is what all terrorists see themselves as meting out. In the minds of so many people, revenge is justice, but I think I understand why you want to treat the two concepts as mutually exclusive. When a mob lynches someone, they are taking justice into their own hands, and the terrible punishment that Israel is now inflicting on the civilian population of Gaza, the majority of whom did not participate in the terrorist attack that Hamas launched against Israel--that is the same kind of justice. How many times have I heard that the Palestinians should have done something to stop Hamas? In the above, you justified a war to punish the Taliban for harboring a terrorist group, but you don't want to call it what it was--a war of revenge.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No. The purpose of striking is to reduce Hamas' ability to do this again.

How so? All the other bombing and responses didn't prevent the October 10th.

The purpose of the striking right now would seem to be to impact the ability of Hamas to use existing infrastructure to mobilize movements quickly to attack / counterattack Israel positions. Obviously in the city, Hamas might have stuff stockpiled, but they'd need it to be where it'd be convenient.

The urban hand to hand combat will be attempting to prevent Hamas from doing this again, by weeding them out. It would be an awful conflict.

Note the term "reduce". Israel knows it can't prevent attacks. It seeks to keep it from being too great. Hamas just pulled a major escalation, expect Israel to majorly increase the Hamas-stomping. It's like pulling weeds--you'll never get them all but you can keep them under control.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Israel has two paths to peace: suicide or turn Tehran into a parking lot and ask if anyone else wants to fund the terror. The status quo is clearly superior to either of these.

I find this post to be a disturbing and anti-human point of view.

The idea that utterly destroying - to dust - a city of 9 million people as either a laugh line, an acceptable hyperbole, or worse still a serious position fills me with disgust.


To be so callous about the lives of 9 million people because of who they have as a government, not to mention saying this knowing that there are ongoing protests against that government by people risking their safety and their lives to do so, and to still say, yeah, turn them into a parking lot appalls me.

People keep demanding that Israel make peace. I was listing the only ways they could and note that I said they are clearly inferior to the status quo.

You are playing shoot the messenger here--I'm presenting a very ugly truth and you act as if I created it. It's much easier to think I'm vile than to accept that your worldview is wrong and Israel has no viable means of making peace.

No, you present a narrow-minded kneejerk revenge view of peace. It is much more revealing of your biases and worldview than it is of the world.

It is an example of the kind of narrow-minded, purely self-interested view that helped make this mess. Iran was not a threat to the region in terms of terrorism prior to 1979 when the Shah was overthrown. The Shah came into power thanks to the US overthrowing the duly-elected new prime minister in 1953. The Shah's rule created his overthrow and the Islamists who took over.

I said nothing about revenge. The issue was preventing. The only way to prevent it is to remove the money. Take out the primary sponsor and do so harshly enough that nobody else steps into their place.

Or do you still pretend that Iran isn't funding the terrorists?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why exactly are we expecting the intelligence service that appears to have been taken completely by surprise to be able to figure out how to effectively identify appropriate targets and missions in this action on such short notice?

They actively track an awful lot of stuff the terrorists do. It's just in times of peace that simply goes onto a target list. In times of conflict they hit things on that target list.

Of course they knew Hamas was planning something. Hamas is always planning something. The question is knowing when it goes from planning to executing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The point is Jews armed themselves and attacked the Brits. Same reasons Palestinians arm themselves and attack Israel. The initial aggressor in today's conflict was Jews arming themselves and taking land by force forming modern Israel, land seizure continuing today.

Note civilians were killed in te bombing. There were other incidents by Jews we would consider atrocities, both Arabs and Jews.

The idea Israel is a blameless victim is Israeli conservative propaganda. Successfully used on American over decades. Now e we are seeing TV adds featuring old alleged Holocaust survivors to stoke syncopate.

I wouldn't say they are blameless. However, the standard poster boys for Israel being bad aren't correct and that says a lot.

(Yeah, there were a couple of massacres. That's going to happen sometimes when combatants disguise themselves as civilians--the soldiers shoot at anything that looks like their opponents and if their opponents looked like civilians it ends up with them shooting at civilians.

^Standard LP bullshit.^

This article lists several well researched books and articles on the subject written by actual historians.

That's why the Geneva conventions require combatants to have some form of uniform. Said uniform need not be complex, just readily distinguishable from civilians.)

You realize you are justifying the attack on the music festival, right?

Huh? The music festival wasn't attacking anyone, there's no uniform obligation.

(And yes, an awful lot of people got displaced--most by their own free choice at Arab behest. When they wouldn't agree to non-violence if they returned they were not allowed to return.

^More bullshit^

The Palestinians weren't asked what they would agree to, and weren't given the option to remain in places where the Zionists wanted them gone. Plan Dalet was all about forcing them out before Israel was declared to exist so that Jews would have an uncontested majority there. The Transfer Committee part of the Jewish Agency for Palestine (later renamed the Jewish Agency for Israel) did its work very well.

Sure there were plans--that doesn't mean they got to execute the plans.

Why in the world should a country be expected to admit those who intend violence against it??)

Why indeed? And yet you act like Palestinians trying to keep Zionists out of their towns and villages was some kind of shocking injustice.

I note that you are equating Zionists with Jews.

Typically the ones that get attacked are simply lost. Took the wrong road and get killed for it.

 

[laughing dog]

Israel has two paths to peace: suicide or turn Tehran into a parking lot and ask if anyone else wants to fund the terror. The status quo is clearly superior to either of these.

I find this post to be a disturbing and anti-human point of view.

The idea that utterly destroying - to dust - a city of 9 million people as either a laugh line, an acceptable hyperbole, or worse still a serious position fills me with disgust.


To be so callous about the lives of 9 million people because of who they have as a government, not to mention saying this knowing that there are ongoing protests against that government by people risking their safety and their lives to do so, and to still say, yeah, turn them into a parking lot appalls me.

People keep demanding that Israel make peace. I was listing the only ways they could and note that I said they are clearly inferior to the status quo.

You are playing shoot the messenger here--I'm presenting a very ugly truth and you act as if I created it. It's much easier to think I'm vile than to accept that your worldview is wrong and Israel has no viable means of making peace.

No, you present a narrow-minded kneejerk revenge view of peace. It is much more revealing of your biases and worldview than it is of the world.

It is an example of the kind of narrow-minded, purely self-interested view that helped make this mess. Iran was not a threat to the region in terms of terrorism prior to 1979 when the Shah was overthrown. The Shah came into power thanks to the US overthrowing the duly-elected new prime minister in 1953. The Shah's rule created his overthrow and the Islamists who took over.

I said nothing about revenge. The issue was preventing. The only way to prevent it is to remove the money. Take out the primary sponsor and do so harshly enough that nobody else steps into their place.

More evidence of your narrow minded views. Regime change in Iran is necessary for peace but bombing it into rubble is not the only option.
Moreover, the last time we meddled in Iran, we planted the seeds for the Islamists to take power.

Your prescription is driven out of hubris, ignorance and revenge.

Or do you still pretend that Iran isn't funding the terrorists?

You are babbling a straw man.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And yet the unmitigated evil that replaced the Shah is many orders of magnitude worse.

As to be expected. When a minor evil is overthrown it's almost always bad for the country--the one exception is sometimes you get a good result when a colonial power is thrown out.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Get a dictionary. Understand what "terrorism" actually means.

First of all, if you want to make an argument, it's up to you to get that dictionary, put up the definition you think makes your case, and explain why it doesn't also make my case. Cutting off the water supply to the civilian population of Gaza and ordering over a million civilians to flee their homes or face death--that's what you think would not be called terrorism. Let's see the definition you think would make the difference. Hamas killed a lot of civilians and took hostages. The bombs the IDF is raining down on cities in Gaza are not distinguishing combatants from civilians. Leveling city blocks is not just striking legitimate military targets. Israel is threatening to kill far more civilians, taking no hostages. In my opinion, both sides are engaged in terrorist acts against civilians.

A siege is not terrorism. What Israel announced was a classical siege.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/politics/joe-biden-israel-visit/index.html

Desperate to bring calm back to Israel, President Biden is heading to Israel in hopes that he can gaffe the region into complete confusion, ending the bloodshed.

 

[laughing dog]

A siege is not terrorism. What Israel announced was a classical siege.

  Terrorism

Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of intentional violence and fear to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants (mostly civilians and neutral military personnel).

So, a siege can be viewed as a form of terrorism.

 

[Arctish]

The point is Jews armed themselves and attacked the Brits. Same reasons Palestinians arm themselves and attack Israel. The initial aggressor in today's conflict was Jews arming themselves and taking land by force forming modern Israel, land seizure continuing today.

Note civilians were killed in te bombing. There were other incidents by Jews we would consider atrocities, both Arabs and Jews.

The idea Israel is a blameless victim is Israeli conservative propaganda. Successfully used on American over decades. Now e we are seeing TV adds featuring old alleged Holocaust survivors to stoke syncopate.

I wouldn't say they are blameless. However, the standard poster boys for Israel being bad aren't correct and that says a lot.

(Yeah, there were a couple of massacres. That's going to happen sometimes when combatants disguise themselves as civilians--the soldiers shoot at anything that looks like their opponents and if their opponents looked like civilians it ends up with them shooting at civilians.

^Standard LP bullshit.^

This article lists several well researched books and articles on the subject written by actual historians.

That's why the Geneva conventions require combatants to have some form of uniform. Said uniform need not be complex, just readily distinguishable from civilians.)

You realize you are justifying the attack on the music festival, right?

Huh? The music festival wasn't attacking anyone, there's no uniform obligation.

Deir Yassin wasn't attacking anyone either.

You are arguing that a group of terrorists can plan to attack a civilian target on a specific day, carry out that attack at the pre-planned time, and if the terrorists encounter soldiers or combatants in civilian clothes then it's perfectly understandable for them to commit a massacre. They'll just start shooting at anyone.

So, your argument is that Hamas can plan to attack people at a music festival on a specific day, carry out that attack at the pre-planned time, and if the Hamas terrorists encounter any IDF soldiers in civvies or plainclothes police officers, then it's perfectly understandable that the terrorists would massacre the concert-goers.

(And yes, an awful lot of people got displaced--most by their own free choice at Arab behest. When they wouldn't agree to non-violence if they returned they were not allowed to return.

^More bullshit^

The Palestinians weren't asked what they would agree to, and weren't given the option to remain in places where the Zionists wanted them gone. Plan Dalet was all about forcing them out before Israel was declared to exist so that Jews would have an uncontested majority there. The Transfer Committee part of the Jewish Agency for Palestine (later renamed the Jewish Agency for Israel) did its work very well.

Sure there were plans--that doesn't mean they got to execute the plans.

They did carry out their plans. Plan Dalet was only one of them.

Ignoring history doesn't make it go away.

Why in the world should a country be expected to admit those who intend violence against it??)

Why indeed? And yet you act like Palestinians trying to keep Zionists out of their towns and villages was some kind of shocking injustice.

I note that you are equating Zionists with Jews.

Typically the ones that get attacked are simply lost. Took the wrong road and get killed for it.

I note that your bullshit is becoming fully detached from reality. The residents of Deir Yassin, Safsaf, Eliabun, Al-Dawayima, etc., did not get lost. They were in their homes and communities when they were attacked.

 

[Tigers!]

Is it any wonder that Israel is scorned and hated by vast numbers around the world?

Hamas is scorned and hated by many too. One each I guess.

And no, contrary to Israel and its apologists, Israel‘s foes are not “anti-Semitic.“ They are anti-Israel, a whole different thing.

How do you propose to distinguish between Israel and the Jews living therein?
If you could detail the logical steps from being Anti-Israel -> not being anti-Semitic that would certainly make these discussions a little easier.