Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[Loren Pechtel]

Israel was clearly wrong to give a 24 hour deadline. A number of posters were very silent on this or even agreed to it. They've not quite yet catastrophically destroyed the north and seem to be delaying some, perhaps due to pressure of good people like the UN saying, "you are being too hasty." 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 now even Israel has abandoned that position. Pregnant women, the sick, people in hospitals, very poor, or just stuck behind a car for 12 hours trying to get southward can be a hell of an issue. Most recently Israel decided to turn the water back on, but just to the south. It's probably an attempt to motivate more people to go southward and improve perceptions of their actions. Either way, stating that there was no water because the pipes were used for bombs or whatever cannot be true, if Israel can just flip a switch and make the water run. I wish that these changes, delays, and turning the water on were a good sign and I do hope that if Israel goes in, that hundreds of thousands more people can leave the north first.

Hamas has vehicles. An evacuation would be possible. Anybody able-bodied could easily walk the distance in 24 hours.

As for water--you have it utterly wrong. The thing is Gaza should have water but the pipes were diverted to rocket-making--uncontested, Hamas brags about using pipes for rockets (and conveniently omits the fact that that means they aren't available for wells.) Thus Gaza is relying on Israeli water instead. If Hamas had behaved Israel wouldn't have any control over Gaza water.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Comparing this disaster to the Nakba of 1947-49, where some 750,000 Palestinians fled the State of Israel as it fought off Arab armies in its War of Independence. Also to the Naksa of 1967, where some 350,000 Palestinians fled the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as Israel conquered those territories in the Six Day War.

1) Most of those 47-49 departures were completely voluntary.

2) How about the similar numbers of Jews who had to flee and lost everything in the process? Israel took them in and helped them get back on their feet rather than turning them into perpetual refugees.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Some Israel apologists are claiming that Israel's leaders are trying not to kill Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. While in a strict sense, that seems to be correct, those leaders are doing a very poor job of that. In fact, that apologetic implies that Israel's behavior falls into this legal category:

•  Negligence
•  Gross negligence
•  Criminal negligence
• How Negligence and 'Duty of Care' Determine Injury Liability | Nolo - "Liability for an accident or injury usually comes down to who was careful and who was careless."
• What Is the Definition of Criminal Negligence? | Nolo - "Understand how the law defines criminal negligence."

Except that's not remotely relevant to the situation.

Civilian casualties are an inevitable part of war and are not considered negligence in any form.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The carriers may be a warning to Hezbollah. They have amassed stockpiles of rockets and missiles on the Lebanon border.

In some ways I think Lebanon is an occupied country.

It's not "in some ways". Lebanon is pretty much controlled by Iran.

I don't think the carriers can meaningfully influence the current situation. Hamas is trying to use this to stir up another war against Israel and I think the carriers are to help deter that. If Israel goes down they'll take most of the Middle East with them and we don't want that to happen.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Israel was clearly wrong to give a 24 hour deadline. A number of posters were very silent on this or even agreed to it. They've not quite yet catastrophically destroyed the north and seem to be delaying some, perhaps due to pressure of good people like the UN saying, "you are being too hasty." 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 now even Israel has abandoned that position. Pregnant women, the sick, people in hospitals, very poor, or just stuck behind a car for 12 hours trying to get southward can be a hell of an issue. Most recently Israel decided to turn the water back on, but just to the south. It's probably an attempt to motivate more people to go southward and improve perceptions of their actions. Either way, stating that there was no water because the pipes were used for bombs or whatever cannot be true, if Israel can just flip a switch and make the water run. I wish that these changes, delays, and turning the water on were a good sign and I do hope that if Israel goes in, that hundreds of thousands more people can leave the north first.

Hamas has vehicles. An evacuation would be possible. Anybody able-bodied could easily walk the distance in 24 hours.

It's like telling Queens you have 24 hours to evacuate to Manhattan. Yeah, one individual can walk there. But en masse, it isn't practicable. Even Israel has delayed, but not you for some reason.

As for water--you have it utterly wrong. The thing is Gaza should have water but the pipes were diverted to rocket-making--uncontested, Hamas brags about using pipes for rockets (and conveniently omits the fact that that means they aren't available for wells.) Thus Gaza is relying on Israeli water instead. If Hamas had behaved Israel wouldn't have any control over Gaza water.

I doubt there are many wells at all or that Gaza was once a flourishing oasis paradise fully supplied by well water. If you have evidence to the contrary, show it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

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.

Agreed. I do consider the creation of Israel to be one of last mistakes of the Colonial era but we don't have a time machine.

Given the fact that at one time or another Jews haven't been safe anywhere it's understandable that they will not accept relocation. They would see that as a first step toward continuing the genocide.

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.

Hamas was elected much later than 1994. They didn't win overall but the did win in Gaza, kicking off a minor civil war that divided the Palestinians.

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.

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

 

[lpetrich]

EXCLUSIVE: Kim Iversen On WITNESSING The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Firsthand (Interview Clip) - YouTube

Commentator Kim Iversen was invited to visit Palestine by some Christian Palestinians. Yes, they aren't all Muslims. She described how West Bank Palestinians did not have freedom to depart the West Bank - one needs permission from the Israeli authorities to depart from the West Bank. Likewise for East Jerusalem, with West Bankers and East Jerusalemites not being allowed to visit each other's territories. She also describes an American who moved back to Palestine to help "build Palestine" at the time of the Oslo Accords, finding that he had much more trouble getting permits for his business than some Israeli Jew for a similar business.

KI also described some Israeli Jews who emigrated to Los Angeles, because it's safer their than Israel -- LA is not a war zone.

They also got into early Zionists and how they were essentially secular nationalists. Also Zionists' terrorism against the British occupiers. They seemed to ignore the long history of Arab terrorism and the long history of Arabs wanting nothing less than "Drive them into the sea!"

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Some Israel apologists are claiming that Israel's leaders are trying not to kill Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip. While in a strict sense, that seems to be correct, those leaders are doing a very poor job of that. In fact, that apologetic implies that Israel's behavior falls into this legal category:

•  Negligence
•  Gross negligence
•  Criminal negligence
• How Negligence and 'Duty of Care' Determine Injury Liability | Nolo - "Liability for an accident or injury usually comes down to who was careful and who was careless."
• What Is the Definition of Criminal Negligence? | Nolo - "Understand how the law defines criminal negligence."

Except that's not remotely relevant to the situation.

Civilian casualties are an inevitable part of war and are not considered negligence in any form.

So only when terrorists kill civilians then?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

https://wapo.st/46t0sNt

6-yr killed after being stabbed 26 times by the tenant. This was in America. Sounds like there wasn't an issue and things were amiable until the Hamas atrocities. So now, one more mini-atrocity to add to the pile. Madness piled onto madness.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

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.

Agreed. I do consider the creation of Israel to be one of last mistakes of the Colonial era but we don't have a time machine.

Given the fact that at one time or another Jews haven't been safe anywhere it's understandable that they will not accept relocation. They would see that as a first step toward continuing the genocide.

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.

Hamas was elected much later than 1994. They didn't win overall but the did win in Gaza, kicking off a minor civil war that divided the Palestinians.

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.

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.

 

[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.

 

[steve_bank]

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

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.

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

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

 

[TomC]

It's like telling Queens you have 24 hours to evacuate to Manhattan.

If Queens launched violence against Manhattan it would be.

But that hasn't happened, so it's totally irrelevant.
Tom

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

It's like telling Queens you have 24 hours to evacuate to Manhattan.

If Queens launched violence against Manhattan it would be.

But that hasn't happened, so it's totally irrelevant.

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.

 

[TomC]

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.
Tom

 

[jonatha]

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?

 

[Tigers!]

They also got into early Zionists and how they were essentially secular nationalists. Also Zionists' terrorism against the British occupiers. They seemed to ignore the long history of Arab terrorism and the long history of Arabs wanting nothing less than "Drive them into the sea!"

Do you make a distinction between Jews and Zionists? I ask because I am not sure if the quote above are your words or those of the author you are referring too.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

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.

 

[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?

(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.

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.