Exactly. The Islamists have spent a lifetime turning the Palestinians into weapons. It's not something you can just turn off. I do not like what is happening in Gaza but I recognize that ultimately, it's Iran that chose that path and is causing it.
Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel
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About 2,000 years ago there was an imperial power propping up a corrupt religious government in Jerusalem. The rulers were living it up while the masses languished. Terrorist kept coming from the poor areas like Galilee and Nazareth, assasinating clergy for being in Bed with the Romans, vandalizing the temple and such. Romans made a show of stringing hundreds of them up on the hill. When that didn’t stop it from happening they would destroy entire villages, men women and children, just wipe the place out. Hasn’t much changed it doesn’t seem.
The world expected them to lie back and think of England.
When Israel bombs a tunnel the houses around tend to fall into the void that's left. Concrete is incredibly weak in tension, it doesn't take much ground collapse to bring down most buildings.
That is unquestionably where Hamas is, but inevitably destroys the area.
Reality: Hamas will be wherever it causes maximum civilian damage. It's a standard part of their strategy.
laughing dog
Contributor
I understand you don't question the IDF's actions. But that doesn't mean they are not questionable.
And the IDF willingly gives Hamas what it wants. Isn't that called a win-win outcome?
1) The current "leaders" have no power in Gaza. For practical purposes it's two nations.
2) Those leader who have "renounced" terrorism continue the pay for slay program. They have not renounced terrorism.
Even now, the primary job of ground troops is to locate the enemy and call fire onto them. Actually facing enemy fire pretty much went out of fashion with the Civil war.
And, yes, assaults still very occasionally happen. Under the cover of artillery that only lets up once the attackers are within the danger close range. Friendly fire is to be expected. (You take fewer casualties overall by reducing the time once the artillery lets up.)
They're rational, they are just acting in the interests of Iran, not of Gaza.
Jimmy Higgins
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That is just so fucking wrong. The world did not say "YOU CAN'T DEFEND YOURSELF!"
There were questions about the blockade, but it would take about 18 months for Europe to say "Dude, enough!"
Yeah, Israeli policies have been bad for Gaza. Because Gaza keeps making not being bad to Gaza be bad for Israel.
War has a tendency to make places uninhabitable. Hamas chooses to fight despite what happens to Gaza.
It's not that he doesn't want a peace deal. It's that he knows that there's no hope of a peace deal.
You're applying an impossible standard.
Israel knows there is no peace to be had so long as Iran is funding the terror. While they would like to win they know the best they can do is suppress the attacks for a while. And they accomplished their primary goal, they recovered the hostages.
But Hamas keeps shooting.
This is an area where there is a lot of dishonest reporting.
This story looks an awful lot like the sort of deception you routinely see in advertising--appears to say something it doesn't actually say. Multiple instances of possibly deceptive wording--why should I not look at what it omits?
1) It's dead during the war. They are blaming Israel for natural causes deaths.
2) There has been internal conflict in Gaza. Once again, counted as Israel.
3) Fairly early on Israel caught ~4k bad entries. Hamas eventually removed them--but without a corresponding ~4k drop in deaths. In other words, they must have made up replacements that weren't so blatantly wrong.
Edit: 4) I forgot about the friendly fire. Typically 20-25% of casualties, but probably less this time. (Hamas rockets are far from reliable, many fall in Gaza.)
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And at least some of those aren't accidental--targeting commanders in their home produces fewer total civilian casualties, but means that the commander's families are likely under the bomb.
And while we are at it--not all of those are truly civilian. I'm thinking of the bomb that took out a whole bunch of people that were rushing to the roof. Israel sent warning of a strike, Hamas reacted by ordering the neighbors to the roof of the building. Too slow, the bomb fell before they got on the roof. You're rushing to the roof because Hamas demanded it, you're a conscript, not a civilian.
It's been long enough, they're starting to give the military honors to the "press".
Finally naming their war dead, Gazan terror groups admit some slain journalists were fighters
A ToI review finds obituaries published by Hamas and Islamic Jihad in recent weeks include several figures previously identified as press; widely cited media advocacy database removes several names of fighters it had said were journalists
www.timesofisrael.com
article said:
In other words, a lot more "civilians" weren't.
This happens every time. Once the world media isn't looking they give their dead military funerals. Civilians don't get military funerals.
Arctish
Centimillionaire
If that's what you believe then stop conflating them.
Rewarding the PA and the people it governs for their renunciation of terrorism does not mean rewarding Hamas for anything.
Post links to the "pay for slay" program. I am particularly interested in how it differs from maintaining the official status of P.O.W.s as active duty. As I recall, the last time we discussed it the "pay" was just regular soldier's wages, not bounties for dead Israelis as the name implies.
Anyway, the existence of veterans benefits and keeping P.O.W.s on the payroll is not an impediment to peace. That's just you getting your knickers in a twist over the PA doing something Israel does, as though the State of Palestine and the State of Israel were on equal footing.
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Looks like yuck, but I don't trust the reporting.
"Long-disputed Bedouin village"--that's most likely an encampment on land they do not own. It's a recurring problem. They're trying to live a nomadic lifestyle on other people's land.
Arctish
Centimillionaire
So you didn't read the article or bother looking up anything about the village, you just posted some random thoughts that occurred to you.
We are not the ones claiming disparate outcomes are discrimination. Rather, disparate outcomes usually imply some other factor at work beyond what's being measured. This case, for example--the chart measures age and sex, not military service. But the excess casualties look an awful lot like the demographics of a military force. We know there is a military force fighting there. What's the least astonishing answer? We are looking at combatant deaths.
Occam got it a bit wrong. You do not only look for the simplest explanation that explains the facts, but you look for the explanation that requires the least abnormal behavior.
Because that's how relief groups operate. They can't operate safely without the permission of the oppressors. Thus they become tools of oppression. I am aware of only one counterexample: the GHF. They operated with an army protecting them instead of with the permission of the oppressors. And Hamas went ape over it. Personally, I think the GHF is what brought relative peace--Hamas was afraid of losing control.
I read the article. AP is not to be trusted over there. A former AP guy admitting it:
article said:
And it's a perennial problem with the Bedouin "villages" that keep springing up. Why should I think this is different?