When does terrorism become war?

[mids2019]

Looking at the news this morning I think the media are finding it difficult to register Palestinian attacks as a terrorism event or simply an attack of one state against another.

I suppose whether you view 5000 tickets as a terrorist atrocity or a declaration of war is dependent on your views on whether Palestine can ever be a functioning state. We plainly in Europe would describe such events as terrorism in that civilian populations have been targeted but in the eternally challenged middle East the use of such a word has political connurtations.

Is this a terrorist attack on Israel?

It was clear you were promoting the further victimisation and abuse of Palestinians, you don't need to say 😉

Hamas must know this attack is doomed to failure and there will be dreadful civilian casualties in both Gaza and Israel. Not to mention the West Bank.

Is it born of desperation and is it really aimed at embarrassing the wider Arab world? I read a book by an Irish diplomat who worked at the UN. He found that most of the Arabs he spoke to had utter contempt for their governments in general and ' the Gulfies' in particular. These latter were regarded as branch offices of Western multinationals. Awash with oil money and indifferent to the plight of Palestinians or indeed poor Arabs anywhere else.

I suppose another outcome is the Israelis are stuck with Netanyahu for the foreseeable.

There will never be peace in the Middle East - each act of violence just begats the next and the Palestinians seem to have infinite capacity to take and inflict pain beyond anything we can imagine. If Hezbollah / Iran get involved then god only knows here that can go.

Massive failure of US/Israeli intelligence - unbelievable that they were caught off guard in such a manner. If one was a conspiracist one could almost imagine Bibi letting it happen, so he can destroy Gaza once and for all and wipe out the Palestinians. What was also chilling was the drone attacks by militants on Israeli armour mirroring what is going on in Ukraine and some of us remember the Iranian missile attack on the US base following the assassination of General Soleimani by Trump where they put missiles with warheads with pinpoint accuracy on hardened shelters on a US air base in Iraq. Defeating their iron Dome /Patriot missile defences. That is why Iran seeks nuclear weapons more than anything and Israel fears them in equal measure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Martyr_Soleimani

It was clear you were promoting the further victimisation and abuse of Palestinians, you don't need to say

And this is why we can't have a reasoned debate, it's ridiculous

I don't believe the situation in Israel /Palestine can ever be resolved, sadly. It's so much more complex and ingrained than most posters here seem to realise (with the notable exception of some very well informed ones). It's an everlasting monument to the never-ending stupidity of man. And the rest of the world is not even learning anything from it. Such a waste of life, hope, civilisation.

As a side note, I am dumbfounded at some PPs thinking the Palestinians should 'just move on' because it's been 70 years. Move on where? Plus 70 years is nothing. The Jews didn't just 'move on' after 2000. It's not that simple.

I genuinely cannot see how it can be resolved. does anyone on the thread have ideas?

When our ancestors settled America or Australia for instance they committed genocide of the native people, so now their remnants pose no threat to their current legitimacy. The European Jewish diaspora from the Holocaust had to commit acts of terrorism against the British occupiers and the Arab inhabitants in order to create their homeland. The problem was generations had lived there in peace and terror was used to get them off their lands. The most notable atrocity was the bombing of King David's Hotel which killed 93 mostly British army and Deir Yassin where a whole village including women and children were wiped out. It is these bloodied soils that the cancer of Arab resistance to the Zionist state was born.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre

It would be a start if:

Hammas disbanded

The leaders of both Palestinians and Israelis agreed a ceasefire

Israel withdrew from the West Bank and other post 1967 territories and respected the boundaries and borders set up when the state of Israel was created

The Palestinians respected those same borders

I can't see it happening though

@duchiebun

"Perhaps we should offer them sanctuary?"

++++

No thanks after the shit they caused in Jordan and Lebanon. Seriously why not invite in as well some Islamic jihadi currently in Syrian refugee camps and prisons.

Much safer to leave Hamas in Gaza where they are surrounded by Israel on one side, the Mediterranean on the other and the Sinai desert on the other.

The only potential solution is a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. There were times in my lifetime (1990s) when this felt a lot more possible than it does now.

@1dayatatime I'm with you but we are responsible to so some could argue we need to share the fallout...

The home secretary is preventing quite rightly any visual support of Hama, a terrorist organisation. However does this suppress legitimate support of Palestinians? If someone questions proportionality of Israeli actions in the next few weeks are we automatically labelling this as antisemitic support for a terrorist organisation given Israel has the right to self defense?

As Hama's must have anticipated a military response won't they take their weaponry and fighters and dissolve into the labyrinthine streets of Gaza city? I'd this is the case what are the streams of to tanks and soldiers who are going to enter the city actually be fighting? I just think this will be bloody in the extreme and could gain sympathy from the Arab world on general.

Yep this one s pretty much the only solution except religious nut jobs on the Israeli side want the whole of the West Bank (religious settlers etc) and religious nut jobs in the Palestinian side want to expel all Israelis into the sea.

Gaza on the other hand is a vipers nest that no one except Hamas is interested in.

Yes, it seems a lot further away of late.

Would sending peacekeepers in to patrol the borders be a good idea? It helped a lot in East-Timor and the Solomon Islands (NZ does a lot of peacekeeping), but I can't decide whether it would helped decrease tensions or just cause more of a shit show.

It's looking like Hamas and its undoubted substantial backing amongst the Palestinians has embarked on national martyrdom. The equivalent of a kamikaze nation against Israel maybe on the hope that the utter destruction that is coming down the line at them sets the Middle East on fire. They seem to want the gates of hell unleashed at them. Grim and worrying times indeed.

Would you want to offer Palestinians a sanctuary in the UK? Really?

Given death tolls in Israel are now up to 600 - and that's only confirmed deaths - and dozens of hostages taken, including babies and children, old people with dementia, whole families etc.

At the peace festival, hundreds of young people who just went to dance peacefully have been massacred in cold blood. Numerous women and girls have been raped. Death squads with guns went door to door on kibbutzim murdering whole families.

And ordinary Palestinians in Gaza are cheering and celebrating this - as are their supporters in the UK.

I don't want this in the UK. Do you??

What will happen now?

Mu whole life I have been a strong supporter of the two-state solution. Not any more. The land space in Israel is tiny - a few miles across at points.

There is no way the Israelis could ever again live cheek by jowl with Palestinians, trust them not to start another terrorist massacre.

In order to have peace, you have to have a viable partner for peace.

Anyone suggesting that Hamas is interested in peace is an idiot.

When people tell you who they are, believe them. The Hamas founding charter states that it aims at the genocide of all Jews, globally.

When the Nazis said they aimed at this, people thought it was rhetorical, would never happened. Those - like my family - who realised in the nick of time that they really did mean it, are the ones who survived.

Hamas have told you and shown you who they are and what they want to do, beyond a shadow of a doubt. The two state solution is over. I don't know what the solution is and I don't think anyone does. Alternatives are frightening and unknown. But something else will have to be found.

I think some people mentioned that Gaza is "occupied" in the sense of a blockade.

But they are under a blockade because they are a legitimate enemy of Israel. If they weren't a threat, they wouldn't be occupied in that sense.

Interestingly, the Hamas justification for violence, is that their own side stole the land in religious warfare, and so it then belongs to them forever.

So it's not just all of Israel they want, they also claim the right to invade Spain and wherever else.

@bollihigh

I think the coming invasion of Gaza is not going to be a limited incursion but a take over of the entire strip with the aim of deposing all of Hamas governance both military and civilian.

The concern is that any Palestinian standing in the way are in a very precarious position.

I wonder if it is going to be necessary to have whole scale evacuations into Egypt perhaps to UN ran camps on a huge scale?

Will there be an attitude from the Israelis that any one of fighting age within certain locations is a legitimate target?

I was thinking the US invaded 2 states as a result of 9/11 and this surely is the Israeli 9/11. The Israelis are going into Gaza in a definitive manner with total victory as its mandate.

I think humanitarian organisations should premptively look to get as many Palestinians out of Gaza as necessary before the ground Invasion

The Hamas leadership:

a) don't live in Gaza - they and their families will all be kept safe somewhere cushy and far away.

b) are all multimillionaires or billionaires - while keeping the Palestinian population poor and angry, the leadership has international property portfolios. Yasser Arafat's daughter is a multi-billionaire.

So they really couldn't care less if fire and brimstone rains down on ordinary Palestinians from Israeli attacks. On the contrary, they love it, because it increases their support. And their money.

Undoubtedly many thousands of Palestinians and many innocents will die and Gaza may well be bombed back to the Stone Age with no water or electricity. We won't see most of that damage in the mainstream media but Arabs will. Hezbollah (effectively an Iranian proxy in Lebanon) could open another front. It will be a bloody chaos. Israel maybe tempted to take out strategic assets in Iran which will prompt a response of missiles raining back on Israel. Without doubt this is the most dangerous time I've seen in my 60 years. I strongly suspect this is what Hamas wants - total war. I hope and pray Israel can pause and reflect before embarking on what will be a bloody revenge.

Yes, all of those bleeding hearts complaining about brutal Israel keeping the Palestinians behind a wall, and having checkpoints.

Well, yesterday's events showed exactly how right they were to do that!!

As soon as the fence was down, murderous terrorists flooded through on a mass killing spree. Anyone who expects the Israelis to just let this happen is insane.

What??

Could you try to post something that makes some sense, please?

Everything going on in Ukraine IS terrible but I have absolutely no idea what your point is.