Gaza "beach" -- what really happened

[Jayjay]

And I'm pretty sure that IDF was not attempting to kill Palestinian children either.

The IDF uses weapons in a manner it knows will kill many civilians. Just as the US does.

There is little moral distinction between killing intentionally and doing things you know will kill many innocents.

IMO knowing you will kill many civilians and not caring is worse. In that case humans are reduced to insects.

At least when somebody says they are going to kill innocents intentionally they recognize the nature of their crime and the nature of their victims.

I agree, but whichever way you look at it, Hamas is worse. Either they are more callous and don't care about the misery they are bringing to the people in Gaza. Or they very well know what they are doing, and do it neverthless.

At least Israel is making some effort to reduce the casualties. They could always do more of course but that doesn't diminish the deaths caused by Hamas one bit.

 

[untermensche]

The IDF uses weapons in a manner it knows will kill many civilians. Just as the US does.

There is little moral distinction between killing intentionally and doing things you know will kill many innocents.

IMO knowing you will kill many civilians and not caring is worse. In that case humans are reduced to insects.

At least when somebody says they are going to kill innocents intentionally they recognize the nature of their crime and the nature of their victims.

I agree, but whichever way you look at it, Hamas is worse. Either they are more callous and don't care about the misery they are bringing to the people in Gaza. Or they very well know what they are doing, and do it neverthless.

At least Israel is making some effort to reduce the casualties. They could always do more of course but that doesn't diminish the deaths caused by Hamas one bit.

Israel is making no effort to reduce civilian deaths.

It has peaceful methods to end this but it has chosen expansionism and all the civilian deaths associated with that policy instead for decades.

 

[angelo]

The people actually lived in peace long before last century. The trouble started in 1948 when the UN granted the Jews a homeland. The Arabs went to war so as to push the Jews into the Med. Got much worse in the Six day war when they were humiliated by a numerically inferior people fighting for their homeland and their very lives. When the Palestinian speaks of a two state solution and peace in English, in Arabic they are saying nothing of the kind. They want nothing less than to kill every last Jew. Just like their prophet taught them to.
The Jews, under world pressure and hoping to appease their retractors pulled out of Gaza, hoping it would bring them peace. Instead it brought them a hostile state from which hamas could continue attacking Israel non stop. If they were to pull out of the Left Bank as well, they would be committing suicide.

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No. It's just before 1948 the Jews had no real power and so the Arabs didn't make a fuss about them.

Sent from my PC using a Northgate keyboard.

It's when they got a UN mandate partition to their own land that upset the Arabs.

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[angelo]

Try again.

Israel doesn't target civilians.

Hamas puts civilians on top of military targets that Israel is going to bomb, it hides military targets amongst civilians (one of the high profile dead kids from 2009 turned out to be from a fragment of a rocket thrown up when Israel hit an ammo dump) and it uses the protected things for military purposes.

Get over it. What do you think asymmetrical means? IDF butchery in Gaza has been so general, there is no way to separate these things. You know that is true and just keep harping on something that isn't really an issue. The issue is the mass civilian slaughter the IDF has engaged in. The issue is the slaughter of children. The Israelis kill the kids. I have never heard of Hamas murdering any Palestinian kids. NEVER.

They do that daily when they place rocket launchers behind children. It wins them the propaganda war. Israel can moan and groan all it wants, but nothing beats a dead child on the main news services and front page of newspapers.
Sometimes the same dead child is trotted out elsewhere as long as there are reporters around.

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[arkirk]

Get over it. What do you think asymmetrical means? IDF butchery in Gaza has been so general, there is no way to separate these things. You know that is true and just keep harping on something that isn't really an issue. The issue is the mass civilian slaughter the IDF has engaged in. The issue is the slaughter of children. The Israelis kill the kids. I have never heard of Hamas murdering any Palestinian kids. NEVER.

They do that daily when they place rocket launchers behind children. It wins them the propaganda war. Israel can moan and groan all it wants, but nothing beats a dead child on the main news services and front page of newspapers.
Sometimes the same dead child is trotted out elsewhere as long as there are reporters around.

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<snip> This idea that Palestinians are always evil and they use their dead for propaganda is itself nothing but a mean spirited story on your part without any reality. <snip>

 

[Arctish]

No. It's just before 1948 the Jews had no real power and so the Arabs didn't make a fuss about them.

It's when they got a UN mandate partition to their own land that upset the Arabs.

Well, it's true the plan to give half of Palestine to recent arrivals from Europe upset the long-term residents, but they were already upset by things like the bombing campaign carried out by Irgun in the 1930s. The conflict started decades before the partition plan was drafted.

 

[untermensche]

Let's face it, any group of people claiming to be occupying land given to them by some god are not only insane but generally a big pain in the ass. This goes for the Jews in Israel and the Muslims in restricted areas surrounded by Israel.

To think that Judaism is not as repugnant as Christianity or Islam is to have several standards of judgement.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Try again.

Israel doesn't target civilians.

Hamas puts civilians on top of military targets that Israel is going to bomb, it hides military targets amongst civilians (one of the high profile dead kids from 2009 turned out to be from a fragment of a rocket thrown up when Israel hit an ammo dump) and it uses the protected things for military purposes.

Get over it. What do you think asymmetrical means? IDF butchery in Gaza has been so general, there is no way to separate these things. You know that is true and just keep harping on something that isn't really an issue. The issue is the mass civilian slaughter the IDF has engaged in. The issue is the slaughter of children. The Israelis kill the kids. I have never heard of Hamas murdering any Palestinian kids. NEVER.

The casualty numbers are about half combatants. Since Gaza has nowhere near half combatants the targeting must be quite selective, not general as you claim.

As for the slaughter of children, you still don't seem to get one of the basic rules of such situations: The deaths are the fault of the side that used the human shields. You're defending the guys that slaughtered children.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Get over it. What do you think asymmetrical means? IDF butchery in Gaza has been so general, there is no way to separate these things. You know that is true and just keep harping on something that isn't really an issue. The issue is the mass civilian slaughter the IDF has engaged in. The issue is the slaughter of children. The Israelis kill the kids. I have never heard of Hamas murdering any Palestinian kids. NEVER.

Then you must not read the news:

‘Misfired Hamas rockets’ killed children in Gaza

A rocket salvo that killed 11 Gazan children and hit a hospital on a Muslim religious holiday was the work of Palestinian militants hitting their own people, a report has found, in a damning indictment of Hamas’s conduct during last summer’s war with Israel.

The explosion at the Al-Shati refugee camp on July 28, which killed the children buying sweets on the first day of Eid ul Fitr, was the result of misfired rockets by Hamas, Amnesty International concluded.

Of course, you could say that Hamas didn't intend to hit the children, but isn't that the same as Israels defense in the beach incident?

Amnesty International actually admitted Hamas did wrong?! Wow!

(And note that this by far not the only misfired Hamas rocket. Israel saw lots of them during the war but AFIAK they didn't try to match them up with civilian casualties.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Israel is making no effort to reduce civilian deaths.

It has peaceful methods to end this but it has chosen expansionism and all the civilian deaths associated with that policy instead for decades.

1) Phoning ahead when they're targeting weapons storage.

2) Roof knockers as a second warning to the people living in ammo storage facilities.

3) Not dropping when Hamas manages to get a roof full of people in response to #1.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

They do that daily when they place rocket launchers behind children. It wins them the propaganda war. Israel can moan and groan all it wants, but nothing beats a dead child on the main news services and front page of newspapers.
Sometimes the same dead child is trotted out elsewhere as long as there are reporters around.

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<snip> This idea that Palestinians are always evil and they use their dead for propaganda is itself nothing but a mean spirited story on your part without any reality. <snip>

The Palestinians aren't always evil by any means. Hamas, though, is basically always evil.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's when they got a UN mandate partition to their own land that upset the Arabs.

Well, it's true the plan to give half of Palestine to recent arrivals from Europe upset the long-term residents, but they were already upset by things like the bombing campaign carried out by Irgun in the 1930s. The conflict started decades before the partition plan was drafted.

And the Jews were upset about the massacres the Muslims were carrying out. The Irgun was a reaction to such attacks.

 

[laughing dog]

<snip> This idea that Palestinians are always evil and they use their dead for propaganda is itself nothing but a mean spirited story on your part without any reality. <snip>

The Palestinians aren't always evil by any means. Hamas, though, is basically always evil.

If that is true, then the only explanation for Hamas's initial election is that the Palestinian electorate is either evil or incredibly stupid.

 

[Bronzeage]

<snip> This idea that Palestinians are always evil and they use their dead for propaganda is itself nothing but a mean spirited story on your part without any reality. <snip>.

The Palestinians aren't always evil by any means. Hamas, though, is basically always evil.

At the foundation of ever untenable argument is a flawed premise.

 

[Arctish]

double post

 

[Arctish]

Well, it's true the plan to give half of Palestine to recent arrivals from Europe upset the long-term residents, but they were already upset by things like the bombing campaign carried out by Irgun in the 1930s. The conflict started decades before the partition plan was drafted.

And the Jews were upset about the massacres the Muslims were carrying out. The Irgun was a reaction to such attacks.

The Irgun, Lehi, and Haganah were the militant arm of the Zionist movement. Even if the Palestinians had been perfectly compliant, the British would not have allowed insurgency to go unopposed. Some form of violence was inevitable, as was the formation of groups determined to meet force with force.

As it happened, the sudden influx of European Jews intent on creating a Jewish State in a place where Jews were a minority (by a large margin even after all the immigration) created a tremendous amount of social tension, pitting people against each other based on their religious affiliation. Riots ensued as the non-Jews of Palestine resisted the formation of a state that would deny then equal rights with their neighbors and keep them under the thumb of Europeans. The British wanted to maintain their foothold in the region, and to keep the populace pacified. And so the Zionist paramilitary formed to defend Zionist outposts, while Zionist terrorist cells began to bomb marketplaces, throw grenades at people standing in lines, kidnap and murder policemen, mine railway tracks, conduct drive-by shootings, assassinate high ranking officials, etc. to convince the non-Jews and the British to let them have their way.

Anyway, the point is, contrary to angelo's claim about the starting point of the conflict between Jews and the rest of the people of Palestine, the fight did not begin in 1947 when the UN partition plan was drafted. It started decades earlier, and by the mid 1930s it had become very bloody.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The Palestinians aren't always evil by any means. Hamas, though, is basically always evil.

If that is true, then the only explanation for Hamas's initial election is that the Palestinian electorate is either evil or incredibly stupid.

1) The electorate was faced with two bad choices.

2) Hamas didn't show their true colors until after the election. They wouldn't be able to win now that they have--as evidenced by the fact there have been no elections since.

 

[untermensche]

If that is true, then the only explanation for Hamas's initial election is that the Palestinian electorate is either evil or incredibly stupid.

1) The electorate was faced with two bad choices.

2) Hamas didn't show their true colors until after the election. They wouldn't be able to win now that they have--as evidenced by the fact there have been no elections since.

The US electorate is continually faced with two bad choices.

But you live with what is and hope for better.

You don't nullify elections, refuse to recognize governments, and cut off aid needed because of your oppression, because you don't like the outcome.

Both the US and Israel showed how little they care for democracy when they used every means available to thwart the will of the Palestinian people.

Both these nations that brag about democracy all the time. In action they don't like it.

They like their pretend democracies where money decides elections.

Fuck elections that express the will of the people. That needs to be crushed.

 

[angelo]

The casualty distribution makes it very clear that Israel's targeting isn't indiscriminate. Despite Hamas' human shield tactics the numbers currently stand at 44% combatants, 36% civilian and 20% so far undetermined. (Note that this goes down over time as martyr pages for combatants often go up long after the fighting is over once the news has died down.)

When you're firing ordinance into cities this is a very good track record--it's even better considering the Hamas use of human shield tactics.

(And note that it's Hamas that's committing the war crime here with the use of human shields.)

You keep yammering on endlessly about human shields. There is no safe place for a Palestinian in Gaza anywhere when the IDF starts to bomb. I really wish you would cut out this bullshit. No matter where a Gazan is, if the IDF kills him or her, he or she is a "human shield" for Hamas. You need to make it clear how it could be any other way. You need to spell out how Hamas could place people where they would not be human shields. Do you really think you can talk the Hamas people into lining up on a field then telling the IDF they are there? Only suicide sacrifice will do for the less than human animals according to you. Just stop this bullshit...please!

For fuck sake!! There is plenty of open space in Gaza. Why not launch rockets from an open space, why fire rockets from hospitals, schools, and deep in civilian centres? Isn't it because hamas doesn't give a rats ass about Palestinian civilians, but uses any casualties as propaganda which progressive media especially laps up! Israel usually wins the war but loses the propaganda war big time!

 

[laughing dog]

If that is true, then the only explanation for Hamas's initial election is that the Palestinian electorate is either evil or incredibly stupid.

1) The electorate was faced with two bad choices.

2) Hamas didn't show their true colors until after the election. They wouldn't be able to win now that they have--as evidenced by the fact there have been no elections since.

Your first point reflects your biases and is ultimately irrelevant as untermensche points out. The 2nd point rebuts your initial claim because Hamas was elected for its good works which is evidence that it is not evil. All in all, I see no rebuttal but kneejerk ideological bias masquerading as disinterested analysis.