Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[laughing dog]

Until Hamas identifies them and kills them. Hamas would regard an independent reporter as a spy.

Bullshit. Please stop confusing your uninformed and biased opinions as fact. I suspect that the gov’t of Israel has killed more journalists than Hamas over the years prior to this hostility.

 

[Arctish]

Why are we talking about evacuating all of Israel when the obvious next step is Israel recognizing the 1967 borders and pulling its citizens out of the illegal settlements they built?

Bilby explicitly called for the ethnic cleansing of Israel.

And your post about Hamas was "peace" for 67 borders and right of return--which is just another way of bringing about the same thing. You apparently don't realize you're also asking for the ethnic cleansing of Israel.

No, I'm not calling for the ethnic cleansing of anywhere. But I realize that's how you see it.

Over and over on this discussion board and its predecessors you have expressed your belief that some religious or ethnic group must be "dead or fled" before there can be peace. You have made it very clear that you believe Israel should and would incinerate millions of people in a nuclear firestorm rather than allow even a few thousand of them return to their former homes. You believe genocide is a likely outcome because that's what you would do if you were in charge of coming up with a 'solution' to the problems inherent in the creation of a religious ethno-state in a place where more than one religion is practiced, and more than one ethnic ancestry is found among the citizenry.

Jews aren't special, Loren. They can live in peace alongside of non-Jews, just like they did in Palestine for centuries before Zionists and European economic interests destabilized Palestinian society. They can even have their very own ethno-state within clearly defined borders as long as they fully support everyone's right to do the same. What they can't do is piss in everyone else's porridge and then cry that no one likes them.

Well, obviously the Zionists can. But they shouldn't be allowed to get away with that shit.

Israel is going to have to accept borders at some point. Why not accept the ones the international community and the Palestinians have accepted? It's pretty fucking generous of the Palestinians to even entertain the idea of allowing the theft of their land and resources to become permanent. So why doesn't Israel accept that generous offer?

 

[lpetrich]

Alex Sammon on X: "Biden admin officials admitting that the pressure on them to call for a ceasefire is becoming undeniable. All the calling, emailing, and protesting is working. (pic link)" / X

In fact, there is recognition within the administration that that moment may arrive quickly: Some of the president's close advisers believe that there are only weeks, not months, until rebuffing the pressure on the US government to publicly call for a ceasefire becomes untenable, sources told CNN.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Israeli Rabbi Describes Settler Rampages Across West Bank

Rabbi Arik Ascherman delivered an Oct. 29 online lecture on settler violence in the West Bank to Reform Jews in Canada from outside a Jerusalem cell phone

www.counterpunch.org

 

[bilby]

So you support ethnic cleansing.

So you support insulting people based on stupid inferences.

 

[bilby]

I care far more about the side that didn't choose war than the side that chose war crimes.

Both sides chose war.

Both sides are choosing war crimes.

I support neither.

You wouldn't either, if you weren't completely one-eyed, to the point that you can post the above in apparent seriousness, believing that it describes your support of Israel.

 

[Tigers!]

Hamas has been offering for over a decade to recognize the 1967 borders. The PA recognized the 1967 borders in 1993 when the Oslo Accords were signed. Anyone still claiming that Hamas and the PA won't ever accept Jews living in Israel is either uninformed about what the Palestinians will accept, repeating bigoted racist Zionist dogma, or both.

If you could please cite chapter and verse where Hamas explicitly recognises Israel right to exist would be useful. You can recognise the 1967 boundaries and still not recognise Israel's right to exist.

Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

Mutual recognition of borders is huge. The PA has recognized the Israeli government, the Right of Israel to exist, the Right of Israelis to exist in peace and security, and iirc a few more rights as well.

Mutual recognition is huge as you say. Where has Hamas said it will recognise Israel's right to exist?

So what if Hamas holds out on official recognition of Israel's government for now?

I remind you of 1400 dead Israelis on 7th Oct. That is a rather large so what.

Recognizing 'here is where our land ends and your land begins' has always been the first step in settling land disputes. It's long past time for Israel to get on with it.

If I were a Jew I would not trust anything Hamas says except when they say we will kill you or want you gone.
"From the river to the sea" has an explicit meaning and Jews are not a part of it.

If I were an Israeli I would be glad to hear Hamas was offering to recognize the 1967 borders, and I would want my government to do the same.

But you and I are not Israelis. Our opinion is superfluous.

Trust can come later.

Trust must be earned. I would not trust Hamas about anything except their stated desire to kill Jews.

 

[Arctish]

Hamas has been offering for over a decade to recognize the 1967 borders. The PA recognized the 1967 borders in 1993 when the Oslo Accords were signed. Anyone still claiming that Hamas and the PA won't ever accept Jews living in Israel is either uninformed about what the Palestinians will accept, repeating bigoted racist Zionist dogma, or both.

If you could please cite chapter and verse where Hamas explicitly recognises Israel right to exist would be useful. You can recognise the 1967 boundaries and still not recognise Israel's right to exist.

Don't let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

Mutual recognition of borders is huge. The PA has recognized the Israeli government, the Right of Israel to exist, the Right of Israelis to exist in peace and security, and iirc a few more rights as well.

Mutual recognition is huge as you say. Where has Hamas said it will recognise Israel's right to exist?

You are doing exactly what the Israelis did when the possibility of a peaceful resolution came along - they kept asking for more, and more, and more.

As I said earlier in this thread, Israel apologists used to say Israel would be happy to make peace if only the Palestinians would recognize Israel's Right to Exist. The PA did that.

Then it was "Israel would be happy to make peace if only the Palestinians would recognize Israel's Right to Exist in peace and security on the land it has claimed". The PA did that.

Then it was "Israel would be happy to make peace if only the Palestinians would forswear violence as a means to achieve their ends". The PA did that. Not only did Israel not make any effort toward peace, the Israelis pitched a bloody fit when the PA sought recognition and representation at the UN so they could pursue peace at the international institution devoted to doing that very thing.

So now it's "Israel would be happy to make peace if only Hamas would lobotomize it's fighters and give every Jewish Israeli an ice cream sandwich and a pony".

How about instead of making new demands, Israel takes a step in the right direction and accepts the generous offer the Palestinians made when they accepted the 1967 borders?

So what if Hamas holds out on official recognition of Israel's government for now?

I remind you of 1400 dead Israelis on 7th Oct. That is a rather large so what.

Do you think that attack would not have happened if Hamas officially recognized the government of the State of Israel?

More importantly, do you think Israel's failure to establish or recognize borders might have something to do with the ongoing bloodshed?

I do.

I think the ongoing bloodshed is directly tied to the rightwing Zionists that insists on seizing all of Eretz Yisrael and will not even consider a border that doesn't give them all of the land between the river and the sea, and a "right" to expel anyone who isn't Jewish.

Official recognition of Israel's government by Hamas can wait. It already has official recognition from the PA, so what's the hold up with recognizing the 1967 borders on that side?

Recognizing 'here is where our land ends and your land begins' has always been the first step in settling land disputes. It's long past time for Israel to get on with it.

If I were a Jew I would not trust anything Hamas says except when they say we will kill you or want you gone.
"From the river to the sea" has an explicit meaning and Jews are not a part of it.

If I were an Israeli I would be glad to hear Hamas was offering to recognize the 1967 borders, and I would want my government to do the same.

But you and I are not Israelis. Our opinion is superfluous.

Trust can come later.

Trust must be earned. I would not trust Hamas about anything except their stated desire to kill Jews.

Yes, indeed. Trust must be earned.

Israel abandoning the Oslo Accords damaged what trust existed at the time the Accords were signed. Israel promoting a man who claimed to have deliberately sabotaged the Oslo Accords to the position of Prime Minister destroyed what little trust remained.

It's time for Israel to prove itself as a trustworthy partner in the peace process. IMO the easiest way to do that is to reward the peacemakers by recognizing the 1967 borders and relocating its citizens back inside them, unless those folks want to be citizens of the State of Palestine. The rest of the negotiations, about air space, communications, developing resources, distribution of water from Palestinian aquifers, etc. , can follow from that.

 

[Copernicus]

...
You want to prioritize military operations over the safety of civilians, but the Geneva Protocols say the opposite. Moreover, as I pointed out, "human shield" implies that something is being shielded, and logic suggests it is what those using human shields do not want destroyed--military assets. Hence, human shields serve no other purpose than to shield military targets, and your interpretation is that this means they can be killed in order to eliminate the targets. So why have any international law at all that says human shields cannot be targeted? They can be killed simply because of what they are--targets painted on enemy military assets. In order not to kill them, you have to refrain from destroying what they are being used to shield. The business about picnics and weddings was just my sarcastic way of pointing out that they are shielding what you think cancels the need to protect their lives.

Geneva doesn't require what you think it requires. It does not require that you not hit a target protected by human shields.

That is not how I read them, and I think that your opinion basically negates any treatment of individuals as  protected persons under the conventions. That's because human shields are, by definition, people used to shield military targets. And the "attacking party" is often described as the "impeded party", because they are prohibited from attacking under those circumstances. The exceptions listed are usually narrowly constrained, but it is clear that there needs to be a specific military advantage gained that fits with the concept of  Proportionality (law). Dropping a bomb on a neighborhood of civilians to kill an individual Hamas leader when no attack from that location is in progress is a very obvious example of a violation of the Human Shield law. There is no enemy military action being stopped, and there is no proportionality. Your reading of the Geneva Conventions on this subject renders them utterly meaningless. However, if you think I've misread the Geneva Convention, then point me to something that supports your interpretation.

When IDF spokespersons claim that they are doing everything they can to protect civilian lives, I can only roll my eyes. They are doing everything they can to rationalize and justify killing anyone who gets in the way of a suspected military target. They think that dropping leaflets to tell everyone to skedaddle somehow exonerates their depraved indifference to the lives of civilian Palestinians, including men, women, children. Anyone.

On the scale they are currently operating there's not a lot they can do to avoid casualties amongst the human shields.

That's not in dispute. What is in dispute is whether that is a scale that is morally or legally justifiable. Bombing neighborhoods is not the only way for Israel to eliminate Hamas, and the military worth of doing so is highly questionable. It looks more like a genocidal tactic than a military one--a tactic more designed to implement ethnic cleansing that stopping a military attack.

...
But what it seems you are saying here is that there is no compelling reason NOT to kill civilians if the reason is to hit Hamas, and that is what compels IDF targeting priorities. The attacking forces don't need to exercise any restraint, because all those people should have paid attention to the leaflets and fled, even if fleeing was impossible or pointless (because Israel is bombing designated safe areas on account of the IDF thinking they harbor Hamas facilities).

The attacking force should not use force beyond what is necessary to accomplish it's military objective. Drop the smallest bomb that will destroy the target. Use guided weapons to reduce the misses. It's not required not to pull the trigger.

You have a very broad concept of "military objective". Basically, it seems that you think killing any member of Hamas is a military objective, even if they are not actually engaged in a military action. That is essentially treating assassination as a military objective, even if it kills what would be considered "protected persons" under international law. For example, if someone thought to be a Hamas official is at a funeral, it is ok to drop a bomb on all the mourners just to kill that one official. Your only sense of restraint is that it should be the "smallest bomb."

As for the ambulance, we don't know the details but there's no reason Palestinian ambulances should get special treatment. Not only has Israel repeatedly caught them smuggling but the Red Crescent (equivalent of the Red Cross) refuses to condemn such misuse. This forfeits the protections that would normally be associated with an ambulance.

So, again, human shields, human shmields. Wherever there are a lot of civilians, Hamas must be using them as human shields, so bomb the hell out of everything, no matter how densely populated with people from all walks of life. You can't be so clueless as to be surprised that people are now calling Israel out for committing genocide. The Biden administration is already feeling intense heat to change its support for Israel, but the Netanyahu government doesn't care. They prefer Donald Trump over Joe Biden anyway, so no big deal if Biden gets raked over the coals politically for his support of Israel.

People keep claiming Israel is committing genocide--yet the Palestinian population is growing. I find the claims of genocide laughable.

Yes, the population is growing, but it takes years to grow a person, and that does not justify killing them before they become old enough to fight. So I wouldn't laugh too hard at the charge, if I were you. Ethnic cleansing is considered a type of genocide, and Israel has already offered to cancel Egypt's debt if it is willing to take the Gaza population out of the Gaza Strip.

They did take the gloves off this time, that's all. The destruction pattern seems to line up with known tunnels but we haven't seen any images from close enough up to see if that's what's actually happening. Hamas probably learned from previous incidents where their pictures were enough to show that the bombs had collapsed tunnels and now avoids any photography that would show the truth.

Hamas knew what would happen when they launched their massacre, why are you not blaming them for the expected result?

Oh, I do blame Hamas for its massacre, but I also blame Israel for its massacre. You are the one who seems to think that Hamas should be responsible for what Israel decided to do, and I don't think you have the slightest idea of what Hamas "knew" or thought would happen. My guess is that they were totally deluded in their expectations, but I don't claim to know what was in their minds.

...

I think that Laughing Dog made the right point about this already. Israel is using bombs on densely populated areas of Gaza (as most areas are in the Gaza Strip). It claims that it is going after military targets, but that is no excuse to blame the victims, who may not be aware that they are in an area Israel is about to strike. Nor is it clear that Israel actually has what the US likes to call "actionable intelligence" when going after a specific military figure, such as the alleged Hamas leader that was being targeted in the densely populated Jabalya camp neighborhood. The last IDF spokesman I saw who was trying to justify the strike admitted that they weren't sure that they had actually killed the target. Of course, we have pictures of the injured children and adults that they did kill.

Well, duh, how would they be expected to be certain they got their target??

They could interpret all of the dead and injured children as evidence that they killed that one Hamas official in the Jabalya neighborhood. However, the IDF spokesperson admitted that they didn't know if they got him. So I don't think that even the IDF is as confident as you are that they are certain they got their target.

And note that the pictures are often not true. They've even been caught doing a sloppy job with AI creating victim pictures.

Sure. Both sides put out fake pictures online these days. However, it is absurd to think that they are all or even mostly faked.

Those human shields serve more purposes than protecting Hamas leadership and their military assets. They also provide the basis for lies about who made the choices here.

No, they don't. Both sides are making choices. Both sides can choose not to kill civilians or use them as hostages or shields. Israel can choose to refrain from using bombs to go after suspected Hamas target. Ground operations would make more sense, but, of course, those would be more risky to the lives of Israeli soldiers.

The problem is you aren't giving Israel any option to protect itself. Are you another that wants them to die?

What are you talking about? Israel is not about to be destroyed by Hamas. Gaza City is literally surrounded, and the ghetto has been cut in half by the IDF, according to their most recent announcement. Why do you think that Hamas poses a serious threat to Israel? October 7 was a sneak attack that worked because the Netanyahu government did not take warnings seriously.

Which is the Islamist powers. From Hamas to Iran to Qatar, the list is long.

And it includes Israel.

Israel is an Islamist power?!

No. You need to look at the antecedent of Tom's relative pronoun "which" to get what he was referring to--those who were actually making choices. All I said here was that Israel was in the list of those making choices, not just the "Islamist powers".

There's plenty of blame to spread around here, it goes back over a century. But pretending that Hamas using Gazan children as human shields is evidence that Israel is the ethical problem is ridiculous. No. It's Hamas.
Tom

Israel is using Hamas as an excuse for deliberately targeting areas where it knows children are living, and that is a clear violation of international law.

I suggest actually looking at what the law says, not what the propaganda says it says.

There is no rule against targeting a location known to have children. The rule is not "don't target civilians", the rule is "only target military". It's just Hamas puts it's military stuff all through civilian areas so when it's hit civilians die.

But you yourself have come close to making explicit the assumption that every crowded area is harboring military facilities, so everything is a military target. And that is the problem. You assume that the IDF has actionable intelligence, but it sounds a lot more like actionable suspicions, where those doing the suspecting are primed to suspect the worst. Every Palestinian looks like a terrorist.

Given that it seems to be running about 2 dead (assuming you believe Hamas and their numbers are usually way high) per bomb it's pretty clear Israel is targeting things. Likely the tunnels.

Bombs that target suspected tunnels above crowded neighborhoods are not the same as targeting actual known military installations. If Israel wants to go after those targets, it needs to go down into the tunnels or blow them up after making sure that the civilian population above them is moved away first. Leaflets that lie to them about safe havens in the south are no excuse to treat civilians like terrorists. The Geneva Conventions do not give a green light to kill civilians because there might be Hamas personnel among them. There still needs to be some actual military action to require a military response.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

To repeat a point we all have agreement on--what Hamas did was evil and it's terrible to kill Israeli civilians who could barely protect themselves. Many Israelis died under horrific conditions. The Israeli death count was well above 1000.

Now, the death count of Gazans killed by Israel as part of a response is around 10,000, perhaps slightly less. That's also terrible.

There will be continued hatred and violence for generations.

 

[Derec]

UPenn student celebrating the 10/7 massacre at the purportedly "pro-Palestine", but really pro-Hamas protest.



May she be identified and never get hired by anyone.

 

[Arctish]

UPenn student celebrating the 10/7 massacre at the purportedly "pro-Palestine", but really pro-Hamas protest.



May she be identified and never get hired by anyone.

Where was the glorification of rape, slaughter, torture, and kidnapping? It wasn't in that video.

 

[Derec]

More religion of peace and peaceful Palestinian protesters ...

Pro-Palestinian protestor suspected of bearing Israel supporter to death in LA

 

[Derec]

Where was the glorification of rape, slaughter, torture, and kidnapping? It wasn't in that video.

Don't be naïve! It is implied in her glorification of the 10/7 terrorist attack. She knows what happened that day. And so do you.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Derec, do you think the genocide you are advocating is that much better than Hamas's?

 

[Arctish]

Where was the glorification of rape, slaughter, torture, and kidnapping? It wasn't in that video.

Don't be naïve! It is implied in her glorification of the 10/7 terrorist attack. She knows what happened that day. And so do you.

Oh, it's implied.

Just like celebrating the first time your grandparents saw the Statue of Liberty and passed through Ellis Island is celebrating the pogroms in Russia.

Just like leaving origami cranes at Manzanar is celebrating the deaths of American sailors when Pearl Harbor was attacked.

"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty I'm free at last!" implies "Kill Whitey!"

 

[laughing dog]

I don’t understand the point of finding individual instances of “indirect” advocation of violence or direct advocation of violence because I am unaware of any denial of the existence of such individuals.

 

[lpetrich]

I remember Cenk Uygur advocating a two-state solution with big walls separating the two sides. He was inspired by what happened in Cyprus - the island got partitioned into a Greek southern half and a Turkish northern half.

As to the idea that one needs huge bombings of civilians to fight terrorists, did the UK do huge bombings of Northern Ireland to fight the Irish Republican Army?


These 8 countries have pulled ambassadors from Israel amid Hamas war | The Hill

South Africa, Jordan, Turkey, Chile, Colombia, Chad, Honduras, Bahrain


First private university bans Students for Justice in Palestine as Middle East fallout spreads | The Hill

A Brandeis University spokesperson confirmed to The Hill on Monday that the school had banned the student chapter of the national organization, saying the leading factor in their decision was the SJP’s support of militant group Hamas.

 

[Derec]

As to the idea that one needs huge bombings of civilians to fight terrorists, did the UK do huge bombings of Northern Ireland to fight the Irish Republican Army?

IRA was never as violent and genocidal as Hamas. They never had the goal to conquer Great Britain and establish Ireland from the North Sea to the Atlantic. They did not want to rename the capital of London or kill all English wherever they find them.

South Africa, Jordan, Turkey, Chile, Colombia, Chad, Honduras, Bahrain

A motley crew of anti-white racists, Muslims and Latin American socialists like the Chilean suppository.

 

[Derec]

Oh, it's implied.

Yes. When you glorify a terrorist attack, you support things that happened during the terrorist attack.
Just like when Palestinians celebrated 9/11, they also celebrated 3k Americans getting murdered by Islamic terrorists.

Just like celebrating

No, these do not follow. Unlike celebrating a terrorist attack like 10/7.