Israel bombs Gaza killing 200+

[Swift]

It's very interesting in this thread if you're not totally against Israel then you support genocide of the Palestine. some ohave said that Israel broke the cease-fire. Technically that's true. But it's not like they didn't see something coming.

I think this is a horrible situation period. Israel could have scaled back and Palistine could've taken down their rockets. But just because you don't look at it as Israel is 100% wrong and Palistine is innocent doesn't mean that there isn't enough blame to go around.

[Swift]

Originally Posted by motivez

They've killed nearly 1000 Palestinians in a little over a week, most of them innocent civilians.

That's roughly 50,000 a year.. Gaza has a population of about 410,000 (less now that Israel has killed so many).. so if they keep up their current pace, they could be done in under a decade.

If they really wanted to, they could get it down in a few days or a week tops. But they haven't.

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by motivez

They've killed nearly 1000 Palestinians in a little over a week, most of them innocent civilians.

That's roughly 50,000 a year.. Gaza has a population of about 410,000 (less now that Israel has killed so many).. so if they keep up their current pace, they could be done in under a decade.

I made the figure based on the ACTUAL 1.5 million population of Gaza and the population of the West Bank. I mean, what good is Genocide if you aren't going to get rid of them all?

[Stylerod]

Originally Posted by Swift-Bass

If they really wanted to, they could get it down in a few days or a week tops. But they haven't.

[HughRuss]

Originally Posted by Stylerod

I made the figure based on the ACTUAL 1.5 million population of Gaza and the population of the West Bank. I mean, what good is Genocide if you aren't going to get rid of them all?

With 1000 per week, and the actual figures of population, it would take them 30 years to completely dismantle and destroy the Palestinian population, not 330.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by Swift-Bass

It's very interesting in this thread if you're not totally against Israel then you support genocide of the Palestine. some ohave said that Israel broke the cease-fire. Technically that's true. But it's not like they didn't see something coming.

I think this is a horrible situation period. Israel could have scaled back and Palistine could've taken down their rockets. But just because you don't look at it as Israel is 100% wrong and Palistine is innocent doesn't mean that there isn't enough blame to go around.

I have never said Hamas is 100% innocent, and I've said Israel has a right to defend itself. But there's a thing called proportionality of response, and Israel should not need to kill 1000+ innocent civilian Palestinians and destroy what's left of the crumbling civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, government buildings, etc.. in response.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by Swift-Bass

If they really wanted to, they could get it down in a few days or a week tops. But they haven't.

Doing it slower draws less outrage from the rest of the world, they've learned from their experience with Hitler I suppose.. Why engage in an aggressive ethnic cleansing campaign and risk the world taking notice and taking a firm stance?

When Israel does it, they do it slow enough that they can justify the thousands of deaths to innocent people they cause each year as "acceptable" to their hardcore supporters, and for the last 8 years.. we've had an Administration that believed Israel could do no wrong.

Hopefully with the Obama Administration, that will change, and Israel will be forced to make concessions and act reasonably.

If this is truly a war of attrition, they are well on their way to finishing up this genocide within a few decades.. and if you want to buy into idea that this is thousands of years in the making, what's 30, 40, 50 years to accomplish such a task?

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

Doing it slower draws less outrage from the rest of the world, they've learned from their experience with Hitler I suppose.. Why engage in an aggressive ethnic cleansing campaign and risk the world taking notice and taking a firm stance?

Are you comparing Israel/Gaza to the Holocaust?

[motivez]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Are you comparing Israel/Gaza to the Holocaust?

What if I did?

I'm comparing ethnic cleansing to ethnic cleansing, the killing of innocent people to the killing of innocent people, the refusal to provide or allow humanitarian and medical assistance to the refusal to provide or allow humanitarian and medical assistance.

The methods may be different, but the end result will be the cleansing of one specific ethnic group, and I wont justify it.

Like I said earlier in the thread, it's interesting how Israel has come full circle in this regard. It was created as a result of the persecution Jewish people suffered during WW2, and now they spend a significant amount of their time persecuting and inflicting collective punishment on a civilian population completely surrounded by Israel.

Just because it's on a smaller scale and taking place slower doesn't mean there aren't similarities.

[JaJae]

If Israel were interested in ethnic cleansing they wouldn't drop leaflets warning civilians before air strikes. There is no evidence that Israel is interested in wiping out the Palestinians.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by motivez

I have never said Hamas is 100% innocent, and I've said Israel has a right to defend itself. But there's a thing called proportionality of response, and Israel should not need to kill 1000+ innocent civilian Palestinians and destroy what's left of the crumbling civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, government buildings, etc.. in response.

then what would be the proper "proportional" response?

[HughRuss]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

then what would be the proper "proportional" response?

Instead of destroying a tunnel in the first place, I'd say the logical, and pragmatic response would be diplomacy.

Some people just fancy their balls are too big.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by JaJae

If Israel were interested in ethnic cleansing they wouldn't drop leaflets warning civilians before air strikes. There is no evidence that Israel is interested in wiping out the Palestinians.

There's plenty of evidence, some of which has already been posted in this thread.

[C4Casey]

Originally Posted by motivez

I have never said Hamas is 100% innocent, and I've said Israel has a right to defend itself. But there's a thing called proportionality of response, and Israel should not need to kill 1000+ innocent civilian Palestinians and destroy what's left of the crumbling civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, government buildings, etc.. in response.

Proportionality of response has nothing to do with the size of a retalitory response and everything to do with weighing the cost of civilian collateral damage against the projected military benefit. If a Taliban soldier standing on top of a deserted hill armed with only a cross-bow starts lobbing arrows at me, I could call in a B-52 strike and drop 5,000 pounds of bombs on him and it would be proportional. A non-proportional attack would be me nuking a city to take out a tank. Israel has every right to launch a full scale invasion of Gaza in response to rocket attacks if they want to. In order to make their attack proportional, they have to try and limit civilian casualties to the best of their ability when attacking military targets. In Israel's viewpoint, a couple of thousand unintended civilian casualties would be worth the military goals of destroying/crippling Hamas, killing thousands of Hamas soldiers, halting repeated mortar and rocket fire into Israel, and placing the relitively friendly Fatah government back in control of Gaza.

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by C4Casey

Proportionality of response has nothing to do with the size of a retalitory response and everything to do with weighing the cost of civilian collateral damage against the projected military benefit. If a Taliban soldier standing on top of a deserted hill armed with only a cross-bow starts lobbing arrows at me, I could call in a B-52 strike and drop 5,000 pounds of bombs on him and it would be proportional. A non-proportional attack would be me nuking a city to take out a tank. Israel has every right to launch a full scale invasion of Gaza in response to rocket attacks if they want to. In order to make their attack proportional, they have to try and limit civilian casualties to the best of their ability when attacking military targets.

Which they are not doing. Israel admits that it doesn't simply limit its targeting to military targets and also fails to minimize civilian casualties by using weapons that are rather condusive to civilian deaths such as cluster munitions.

Furthermore Israel routinely carries out extra judicial targeted killings and has for decades, many of which are quite condusive to high levels of collateral damage given the way they are carried out.

In Israel's viewpoint, a couple of thousand unintended civilian casualties would be worth the military goals of destroying/crippling Hamas, killing thousands of Hamas soldiers, halting repeated mortar and rocket fire into Israel, and placing the relitively friendly Fatah government back in control of Gaza.

The problem is that's probably not what is going to happen. Far from crushing the Hamas spirit, current Israeli policies rather serve to foment the Hamas mindset and instead of marginalizing them, foment support for them (especially when coupled with the fact that the peace process with non-violent Palestinian groups continues to go ignored). I'm sure everyone remembers what made Hezbollah popular in Lebanon.

I agree that Israel has a right to defend itself, but to do so in a manner that plays into the hands of those who advocate violence is a rather poor way of going about it if regional stability is the goal.

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by Stylerod

But we can start at this. If Israel in fact wanted to eradicate the Palestinians, they would be doing it. What is there that would stop them?

The fact that they don't live in political isolation from the rest of the world?

Not Hamas. Their promise of Defeating the Israeli Army was a pretty stupid comment.

Not really given the fact that Hamas is a regional extension of the Muslim Brotherhood and there is absolutely zero chance of Israel being able to destroy the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas also represents an idea within the Palestinian population and far from surpressing that idea, the current violence rather serves to stir up widespread support for it. Israeli violence on this scale rather serves to help Hamas out in terms of power through popular support.

Now, Israel isn't blameless in this, and neither are the Palestinians. It would be in both of their best interest to not be fighting each other.

I think that it would be in the best interest of regional stability, but in terms of zionism continued conflict rather plays right into their hands as it gives them an excuse to continue the slow ethnic cleansing of areas such as Jerusalem and other parts of the West Bank through the use of slow annexation, the wall construction, settlement expansion, forced population transfers, the cutting off of access to land, and the driving away of Arabs from regions through economic and security forces.

But there will always be people that never want peace with Israel and will do whatever they can to make sure that will never happen.

I agree, and the key is to marginalize that voice within the Palestinian territories. Ignoring the Abbas Government and making war heroes out of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad Movement are not good ways to go about doing that.

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by Swift-Bass

If they really wanted to, they could get it down in a few days or a week tops. But they haven't.

Not really. They may have the military power, but not the political power. It would be suicide for any Israeli government to do that both in terms of international politics (and I would hope) domestic politics.

It would certainly hurt the goals of Zionism especially as Israel lost its status as innocent victim in the eyes of the US population (though I am sure that there would be many who would still support Israel).

Saying something like that would be about as realistic as saying that the US could just "nuke the Middle East if it really wanted to".

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by JaJae

If Israel were interested in ethnic cleansing they wouldn't drop leaflets warning civilians before air strikes. There is no evidence that Israel is interested in wiping out the Palestinians.

Of course they would. That way they could point to the fact that they did it to maintain a face of innocence and pretend like they are actually following the Fourth Geneva Convention when they really aren't.

People eat the leaflet thing up, it makes for great PR and propaganda. Israel did the same thing in Lebanon before it went ahead and blasted the hell out of civilians and contaminated 90% of southern Lebanese farmland with cluster bomblets. Then afterwards they refused to hand over detailed enough maps in order to aid a proper cleanup of the contaminated areas.

I don't really consider the violence in and of itself to be the main ethnic cleansing force. Rather I feel that it is moreso the type of things that we see going on in the West Bank that really drive the cleansing campaign (such as killing the economy).

[Dylith]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

then what would be the proper "proportional" response?

What Israel had been doing with regards to counter attacks on specific targets as attacks occured coupled with actually engaging in a meaningful peace process with the Abbas government in the West Bank in order to validate the more peaceful Palestinian factions while marginalizing the more violent ones instead of the other way around like Israel is currently doing.

[LetTheTruthBeTold]

Originally Posted by Stylerod

Wow, so many lies and propaganda in that post. Amazing. I can't even start to comment on them all.

But we can start at this. If Israel in fact wanted to eradicate the Palestinians, they would be doing it. What is there that would stop them? Not Hamas. Their promise of Defeating the Israeli Army was a pretty stupid comment. The IDF is pretty much having their way and moving deeper into more populated areas with only light resistance. The brave Hamas leadership is hiding like scared little children in the Shifa Hospital because they know Israel won't bomb it and they are relatively safe there.

Now, Israel isn't blameless in this, and neither are the Palestinians. It would be in both of their best interest to not be fighting each other. But there will always be people that never want peace with Israel and will do whatever they can to make sure that will never happen. And Israel will always be paranoid about attacks on their land and will do whatever they can to try to stop or prevent it. And the things they will do will piss off the Palestinians. It's a viscous circle that may never end.

Why don't you start of by answering my claims? First and foremost Israel has a history of massacring Palestinians. There is only one thing they learned during the holocaust and that is for every 1 IDF soldier that is killed take out a few hundred Palestinians and kill them and how to be barbaric in nature. The Israelis did not want to unleash their plans for ethnic cleansing all at once because they want to follow through with their plans slowly. Read about the "Ethnic Cleansing Blueprint for "Plan Dalet" in 1948 which was intended to totally expel Palestinians from their homeland. You seem to mention Hamas and Qasam rockets as being the problem but you forget that in the West Bank Palestinians are tortured, humiliated and killed and no Hamas or rockets are there. Can you give us vaild reasoning why Palestinians are being attacked , tortured and killed by the IDF soldiers and settlers in the West Bank? Why is Israel stealing land from Palestinians? Why are settlers shooting Palestinians, burning their houses, their land, in the West Bank?

News just in that. A 4 year old girl by the name of Shahad living in Jabalya refugee camp was in her backyard when an Israeli shell was fired at the backyard of her house while she was playing. Her parents rushed out to rescue her while she fell to the ground in a pool of her own blood but were unable to reach her due to Israeli's bullets being fired. Shahad's brothers and cousins tried for five days to reach her body without success. Israeli soldiers unleashed a dog at Shahad that mauled her tearing her piece by piece. The brothers made one final attempt to reach their sister while bullets from IDF rained in the area. Before her brothers could reach her body Israeli soldiers fired bullets which killed the two brothers. What was their guilt? Being Palestinian!