Collective Punishment - No water, no food, no medicines

[Lieblingsessen]

I do not condone whatsoever what the Hamas attacks on civilians in Israel or their ideology

But surely, Israel laying siege to Gaza, preventing innocent civilians from accessing water, food, medicines, electricity for hospital equipment, is not justifiable. To collectively punish civilians who have no control over what Hamas or their government does. This is medieval.

Where is the outcry on the mainstream media about this? Surely it is not being anti-semitic to call out Israel, that retaliation is not unexpected, but collective punishment is horrendous.

Incorrect. Husam Badran, a Hamas official, told AFP from Doha the following:

"The military operation is still continuing… therefore there is currently no chance for negotiation on the issue of prisoners or anything else.

Our mission now is to make every effort to prevent the occupation from continuing to commit massacres against our people in Gaza, which directly target civilian homes.

From this hour, any targeting of our people in the safety of their homes, without warning, will be met with the execution of civilian hostages, which will be broadcast with video and audio.

There will not be negotiations on the subject of prisoners while under fire.

We’re prepared to continue the campaign for a very long time. We are sure our young people in the West Bank, in Jerusalem and Arab Israelis value every missile, firearm, knife and stone."

Hamas is behaving true to form - using civilians as human shields whilst issuing unreasonable demands to Israel. They're not entirely truthful as always.

No Sovereign Power could agree to this kind of situation as it hands a terrorist group all the power. States are limited enough anyway without limiting themselves even further.

There's a really simple solution if Palestinians aren't happy with the current situation.

Remove Hamas from their government in Gaza and install one that is willing to get back round the table, negotiate, recognise Israel as a state, and work towards a ln agreement that allows for co-existance. (They may also have to remove the PA from the west bank if they're unwilling to negotiate too).

But they won't do that, because enough of them support Hamas and believe that the entire area is theirs and theirs alone, that having even an inch of it ruled by an infidel, or worse a Jew, is an unforgivable affront to Islam, and that there will be no peace as long as Israel remains.

I think a lot of the posters on this thread won't be happy unless Israel is wiped from the map.

Agree on the IRA thing. Fine to kill British innocents but not an Israeli. They didn't like it when they got a taste of terrorism.

Essentially, the argument that there's no apartheid seems to be "if we don't consider Palestinians citizens at all, then we can't be accused of treating them like second class citizens".

Not very convincing is it? 🤔

Israel shouldn't have any condition to treating Palestinians with dignity and according to international laws

If those they're now at war with were a properly constituted, responsible leadership I'd agree completely, but unfortunately with Hamas being what they are that's just not realistic

At its simplest, they don't get to call for the destruction of an entire nation and its people and then expect those they're targeting to "play nice"

As a very wise poster said upthread, this won't end until Palestine has leaders who value their own peoples' lives more than their deaths, which is why Hamas have to go

What waiting for nearly 2000 years? There were people living there between Roman times and the early 1900s when many Jews came to the area. Yes I know a small number we’re always there. But to say there was no Palestine territory sounds like colonial claptrap. It wasn’t a sovereign country because Britain were somewhere they had no right to be and making decisions about something they had no right to make decisions on.

But I believe they don’t get to vote? I don’t think there’s been an election since 2006. I should imagine a lot of the inhabitants of Gaza might like Hamas to be removed from power. 🤷‍♀️

Are you thick or what?

Israeli Arabs are Israeli citizens with equal rights. Got that? Equal rights. Equal.

Gazaans are not Israeli citizens and never were. Therefore they haven't got automatic rights of movement, work etc in Israel.

It's really not that complicated.

Well of course they haven't. A great big wall surrounds them. Makes even going to work for the day in Israel difficult.

Before Britain it was the Ottoman Empire. And before that there were other empires, going back to the Roman Empire.

Since the fall of Judea to European colonisers (Romans), it was never an autonomous or sovereign country. Up until 1948 when it was decolonised by the Judeans/Jews and became a Jewish sovereign country once more.

You're correct, @VisaWoes; the last election was indeed in 2006, perhaps because Hamas - like so many terrorist groups - are no more concerned about the rights of their electorate than they are about any other human rights

Without an election it's not easy to say just how many Palestinians now support them, though reports suggest the numbers are much higher than might be hoped. That is of course a matter for the people themselves, but it would be worth them remembering that if you facilitate terrorism then you take the consequences

This is horrifying. Horrifying. Poor poor Palestinians dealing with that shot every day. May they see the day this madness is stopped.

And a Channel makes it difficult for French citizens to go to work in England every day. What's your point?

It's not apartheid to have different sets of rights for citizens and non-citizens. Every country in the world does that.

But just by the by, movement from Gaza into Israel proper used to be relatively free. The fence was erected as a response to Arab terrorists butchering Jews.

Aren't you proposing something similar? This time perpetrated by Israel?

Or have I misunderstood you?
What name should we give your strategy? The Final Solution?

@AbraKedavra now, now, calm down. I know it must be frustrating having to talk to people to get your point across rather than just dropping bombs but there really is no need for the personal attack.

Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank do not have sovereignty or human rights. As you well know. You literally exclude them from the definition of apartheid by only including Israeli Arabs in your definition, not those whose land is controlled by Israel yet do not have basic rights of their own. You know this though.

Please enlighten me @AbraKedavra who are the Gazaan people then? Were they transported to Gaza by the Starship Enterprise? I'd always assumed they were the local Arab population that inhabited the land before the modern state of Israel was created and displaced, forced into Gaza and elsewhere to make way for new Settlers.

England hasn't turned France into what is effectively an open-air prison.

England doesn't set up checkpoints and make French citizens wait at them for hours before denying them passage anyway.

England doesn't have a lunatic politician who suggests using "doomsday weapons" to eradicate a whole area and its people.

The two are not comparable and it's a ridiculous analogy.

I could go on but you get the picture.

You can't compare the two. One is natural, the other man made and was condemned by many when it was built. Someone was right. It is a ghetto which Israel will try one way or another to annihilate. Don't deny it.

But Israeli started the apartheid decades ago? Way before Hamas?

If Israel has done no wrong why do you need houses with a safe room? Mightn't it be Israeli settlements that are illegal?

They don't get a vote because the elected an autocratic, tyrannical organisation to power who swiftyly removed that option from the population.

If they're no longer happy with Hamas' leadership they'll have to remove them through revolution.There's been an apatite for armed conflict against Israel all these years, time to turn some of that anger towards their leaders.

Have I been replying to the wrong person? Apologies if so - quotes within quotes may have confused me.

I've said more or less all I have to say. Which amounts to what my Latin teacher told me back in the 1960s - human nature doesn't change My addendum: killing people doesn't help resolve disagreements. It tends to perpetuate them.

Oh hell no. She did not go there.

"No one cares abour muslim on muslim violence, you just don't let Israel abuse Palestinians because they are Jewish"

People spreading propaganda and defending Israel's action here are really not making Israel look good, which is an achievement considering the terrible attack that happened a few days ago, and yet you did it.

Your hate speech and lies are despicable.

Until the last few days, it was working effectively as a security measure, as evidenced by the vastly decreased number of Israeli deaths.

Happy to enlighten you, though I'm skeptical it's what you really want.

One day before the Israeli declaration of independence, there were over 700,000 Jews in what was then known by (its Roman name of) Palestine.

These Jews were not camped out in the streets.

They were living on land that had either been bought fair and square off the previous inhabitants, or uninhabitable wasteland land that had been cultivated by the Jewish settlers.

So nobody was looking to relocate anyone or forcibly remove anyone from their homes in order to make place for the 'settlers'.

After the deceleration of independence, war broke out, initiated by the Arabs. During the course of which, some original inhabitants fled their villages, while others were displaced due to combatants being present in those villages.

Many of the displaced people ended up in Gaza. Which should have been part of Israel. And of it had been, there situation would have been equivalent to being moved from Birmingham to Solihull.

And as they were currently living in houses in Gaza (the refugee* 'camps' were actually regular cities), I don't really see the problem. Sometimes a government has to relocate citizens say to build a railroad. One doesn't become a refugee by being moved a few miles away in the same country.

*as an aside, the only 'refugees' who manage to inherit their status for 5 or 6 generations are the 'Palestinians'. Nobody else in the world has refugee status even second generation from the actual parents who had to flee.