Palestine/Israel

[Lady1d]

Can someone please give me the background to everything that is going on. Sorry to sound like a complete idiot but I'm not at all up to speed on current affairs and need an idiots guide

That's a "no" then.

PigletJohn … What I won’t deny from your rather sick example of “100 + baby lashings”, is that based on the evidence, EITHER side has any tangible respect for non combatants in this ongoing war, but Hamas seems to have more to gain politically from casualties that include their OWN people and (from the current impasse in negotiations in Egypt) clearly intends to keep their own civilians in the firing line.

Someone needs to tell Hamas (designated a terrorist organisation in the U.S. and E.U. and stopped most aid) that the world’s sympathies are with the Palestinian people within blast range of their own military ordinance, not in the forcing of the Israel government (if that possibility existed) to empower a Hamas who sits at a negotiating table refusing to accept their right to exist, refused to demilitarise and wanting a sea port to save themselves time tunnelling (but no doubt planning another 32 replacement tunnels to Israel) - so come on, trying to negotiate on those terms, what sized hubbly bubbly pipe are they smoking????

On THOSE terms, Israel on behalf of their own citizens, have no where to go, but back home to Israel. Note the world leaders response against Israel, that the Israeli military response to Hamas’s 3,300 rocket attack and ongoing threat to their own citizens, was not commensurate with the Hamas attack – there was no instructions to Israel to be continually rear ended by an ‘unreformed’ Hamas militarily or politically, from here on.

And what IF Hamas was on the larger in area Isle of Wight was ON the I.O.W.lobbing missiles over to southern England and had the capability of hitting London, what would the English people want their own government to do to those aggressive terrorists called the I.O.W. Resistance Movement?

Well apart from all points north of the Watford Gap probably cheering them on (lol), it appears we ALREADY feel threatened, so maybe we should better understand why Israeli people and their politics are hardening to terrorists that came to power in 2006/7, but have their annihilation within their charter since forming in the early 1980’s.

“Majority of Britons feel threatened by terrorists”
www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4174699.ece

“Eight out of ten people think that it poses a domestic threat, with 40 per cent now wanting the government to launch bombing raids on the Islamic State (Isis), which has occupied large parts of Syria and Iraq."

A conciliatory Hamas, needing at least $6 billion to rebuild the Gaza as was, never mind improve the lives of their people, has a perfect opportunity within the meetings in Egypt, to demilitarise and ‘save face’ with their own supporters – citing their own economic and social interests to do so.

But Hamas is incapable of putting their own citizens first, so Israel will have no incentive to have Hamas come home with ANY kind of political or strategic victory, hoping the Palestinian’s themselves will oust Hamas.

Then, and only then, the process of rebuilding ANY trust between the Palestinians and Israelis can then return – and politically the world can get behind a lasting peace process along the lines of the (pre Hamas) 2003 superpower Palatine/Israel ‘roadmap’. IMO.

"Hamas seems to have more to gain politically from casualties that include their OWN people "

This appears to be the absurd allegation, popular in Israeli propaganda, that Palestinians like to put themselves and their families in front of Israeli tanks and bombs so that they can be crushed, killed or maimed to make a good photo.

I don't know if you have a family and would do that with yours.

As I've said before, all life is cheap to an Islamist Jihadist, many of whom are prepared to die for their cause e.g suicide vests, and as I'm a lapsed CoE merchant, I can't answer for their state of mind - especially concerning their families which for the senior Hamas people, might currently be living near the beach in Qatar or similar.

If Hamas cares about the welfare of their own citizens, the proof is both simple and immediate.

When they get back from Egypt empty handed, having offered nothing but their own demands, when/if they STOP firing rockets/missiles at israel, lets see how many Palestinian innocents are killed/injured until they resume.

Are you are telling me that you would throw your children into a bomb target or under a tank, so that their death would make a propaganda point, and you think Palestinians would do the same? You are a monster. Or a liar.

PigletJohn ….. an interesting little rant there, I’m not quite sure how my saying as a lapsed Christian who was unable “to answer for their (Islamist Jihadi)state of mind” produced all that shit in your “100 baby lashing” Hamas apologist mind - but clearly I did NOT say that I would endanger my family in any way.

But I’m not living in Gaza where building for, and launching a war, from such a small area would GUARANTEE that I’m putting my family and others in mortal danger.

As to do I believe Hamas leaders when launching 3,300 rockets at Israel knowing there will be a firm response are putting their families at risk, I reiterate, probably not, as they will have the OPTION not only to get their families to much safer locations, but those brave Islamist leaders of men fearful of an Israeli drone hit, will probably be WITH THEM.

P.S. When you can’t use ‘the Hamas word’ when talking about those instigating the war with Israel (hence currently named at the negotiating table in Egypt by their chosen ‘resistance movement’ Hamas title), I wouldn’t accuse anyone else of an ‘unbalanced’ mind.

P.P.S. Feel free to apologize to me for calling me a liar, for very daring to accuse you of being an apologist for the 'H' word, you dare not even utter their name.

"I did NOT say that I would endanger my family in any way."

But for some reason you have convinced yourself that Palestinians will.

Clearly it is not just the men of Hamas in COMPLETE DENIAL on the ‘size’ of the area from which they insist they deliver their payload.

Isle of Wight = 380 square km.

Gaza Strip = 365 square km

The major difference being that the first produces and delivers cream teas, the other storing making, storing, firing several thousand rockets/missiles, with no doubt there will be a retaliation.

And yet you don't even see this as a Gaza 'elf and safety' issue for their women and children. How very strange.

For those thinking that the Islamic Jihadists known as Hamas will ever want peace and treat their own people’s lives with any more empathy than those Israeli citizens they try to kill every time they fire one of the 3,300 missiles, I find this insight into the terrorist psyche very interesting.

“Gaza Rockets Rupture Truce, Triggering Israeli Air Strikes”
www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-19/gaza-rockets-rupture-truce-israeli-military-strikes-in-response.html

“Even with the loss of life and damage from Israeli air raids, Hamas may emerge politically stronger from the confrontation with Israel, said Youssef Munayyer, executive director of the Washington-based Palestine Center, a research group.

“They might actually benefit politically from the war because they were able to inflict unprecedented losses on the Israeli military,” Munayyer said in an e-mail.

No domestic cares for the deaths of their own citizens, Hamas not only sees this as a political game, but also a political GAIN both within Palestine and beyond to their external supporters.

Hamas apologists ask anyone suggesting balance to the current military ping pong WHAT is the value of every one Israeli life to those Palestinians killed when Israel retaliates to Hamas rocket attacks. Well it appears that Hamas values every Israeli dead, even more than the Israelis values an Israeli life.

So Hamas will continue to wage war from a Gaza smaller than the Isle of Wight and let their apologists OUTSIDE mourn their casualties, as they don’t give a rat’s arse, after all, they were democratically elected – so here we go again.

Good news for the Hamas apologists; an emboldened Sunni Hamas after the last battles with Israel are getting better at Killing Israeli soldiers. helped by Shia Iran (whose missile designs could hit Tel Aviv airport recently), and Hezbollah.

“Retooled Hamas Bloodies Israel With Help From Hezbollah”
www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-20/retooled-hamas-bloodies-israel-with-help-from-hezbollah.html

With these types of intra religious Islamic terrorism pacts, its not a stretch to believe Sunni ISIS (or now known as IS) will always have a home/base in Gaza to go to, as they’ll kill anyone other than a Sunni for a ‘larf’.

Maybe then Hamas will finally call themselves ‘Ha’, to confirm they are laughing as those who think they are boy scouts, bear NO responsibility for their own civilian casualties starting military exchanges with Israel, and have no interest in peace as their Charter will not allow them to, until Israel no longer exists.

Isitmebut: For someone who insists they're not an Israel apologist, you're certainly providing damning evidence to the contrary.

You prattle on about Hamas, forgetting one rather crucial point. Palestinians are an occupied people and as such have the right to armed resistance under international law.

How do you think the state of Israel was created if not through terrorism? You may call it a war of independence and prattle on about Arab armies, but that doesn't change the facts of Irgun, Stern Gang/Lehi, Haganah etc and their massacres of civilians.
www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/mass-graves-jaffa-israel-palestine-1948_n_3385011.html

What would Israel do in Hamas' shoes?
www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.611672

Israel when threatened and attacked by Egypt, Syria, Jordan and others, fought a war, so they'd do the same as expect casualties.

As you have intimated, it is a war the democratically elected Hamas wants, and getting, why the hell are they crying to the world about THEIR casualties, when they'd have rejoiced in the street if every one of their 3,300 plus missiles hit an israeli school?

War is war, there is no rule book, as I wrote on one of the other threads with 6,000 posts not getting their head around, Hamas is no worse, or better that ISIS to the Israelis so they will never negotiate with Hamas - and there is no such thing as non combatant casualties in ANY war since year dot.

If Hamas insists on waging war citing every previous incident, and Israel does the same, why are so many people supporting Hamas and think that they can persuade the Israelis to EVER give their personal ISIS more room to wage war on them. Dah.

"War is war, there is no rule book"

You are wrong there.

Have you never heard of the Nuremberg Trials?

You need to brush up on your history.

Have a look for "Israeli seizure of Jerusalem Homes" while you're at it.

And even Israel has its own laws, though of course they are broken by Israeli soldiers when they feel like it, and the Israeli Defence Ministry simultaneously claims not to commit war crimes, and appeals that they should not be illegal.

The Israel Defense Forces admitted it had used Palestinians as human shields; it acknowledged using human shields 1,200 times during the Second Intifada.

The practice was banned by Israel's High Court of Justice in 2005. The Israeli Defense Ministry appealed this decision. Specifically, while acknowledging and defending the "use of Palestinians to deliver warnings to wanted men about impending arrest operations", a practice known in Israel by the euphemism "neighbor procedure", the IDF denied reports of "using Palestinians as human shields against attacks on IDF forces", claiming it had already forbidden this practice

Are Hams suicide bombers on Israeli buses covered in the trials, or are they exempt on a technicality, as blown into a 1,000 bits?

You are cherry picking my points.

But yet another weak deflection, Piglet, is Hamas at war with the Israeli State they have sworn to recover as Palestine, or not?

Tell me a war/conflict where the rules are I CAN SEND 3.300 ROCKETS TO KILL YOUR CIVILIANS, but you can't kill mine?

If not at war, every rocket is attempted murder, and covered by civilian law.

Hamas is not a country, so it can't have a war.

If, as in the posture you are now trying out, acts such as IRA bombs and Hamas rockets are criminal offences, then an attempt should be made to identify and arrest the criminal.

It may come as a surprise to you to hear that following the Omagh bombing, the UK government did not send the RAF to bomb Dublin, including schools, hospitals and UN refuges, killing and maiming people by the thousand, most of whom were non-combatants, and many of whom were children.

Is that what you consider the correct response would be?

So again with the deflections from the facts Islamic Jihadist Hamas facts. England certainly had Irish IRA terrorist attacks on our shores, but their intent was not to kill everyone in England and live here, and nor were they stupid enough to commit to daily artillery barrages across the Irish Sea to England at all, never mind from where they and their families lived.

Hamas is the elected government of Gaza from 2006, and although there are more citizens below voting age, those that could vote gave Hamas a decisive majority in the Palestinian Parliament, speaking, and responsible for, around 2 million UNDER the voting age – throwing out Fatah that had been more conciliatory to Israel, which was why Israel pulled out all their Gaza settlers in 2003, and had been responsible for keeping Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, Popular Resistance Committees and The Army of Islam, under control.

So please correct me if I am wrong, Hamas and it’s Charter in 1988 calling for the eventual Islamic State in the State currently called Israel, were well known to the citizens of Gaza, and they KNEW that a Gaza Strip (smaller than the Isle of Wight) would take a more offensive stance against Israel than before, and the majority of those voters in Gaza still approve of Hamas stepping up its attacks on Israel from those of the previous administration, which are ACTS OF WAR.

War:a state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states or parties.

The Israeli ‘occupation’ of Gaza does not include Israeli’s within and is mainly via the blockade and other measures that Israel put in place AFTER the election of Hama DUE to their previous record of terrorist attacks against Israel, and it was Israel’s duty to protect it’s citizens against Hamas attacks, that would still come by missiles, land, tunnels and sea.

The State of Israel is now a recognized State, country boundaries have been re-drawn in Europe etc for hundreds of years, any country trying to retrieve its land now, through aggression, would immediately be called an act of war – and a Hamas government is badly advised by their people to attack a larger nation’s citizens, from such a small area with 1.7 mil citizens, with homes, schools, hospitals, military ordinance and launch sites, in the same streets.

The Palestinian government of Hamas, if they cared for their people, would demilitarise to begin a peace process, using the time to rebuild/improve their infrastructure and prosperity, using the armaments money and industrial production capacity currently supporting their war effort – and then be able to engage Israel in negotiations, with international support/pressure, to initially relax the blockades and then negotiate longer term solutions.

But Hamas can’t or won’t do that, and I’m not sure the Palestinian people that elected them, want them to do that. Compounding the problem now is that even if Fatah returned to govern, Hamas and fellow Islamic Jihadist groups will still be too strong for them to contain – so the war, and therefore the civilian casualties, will unfortunately continue. I reiterate, Hamas is Israel’s ISIS, so to protect THEIR citizens, few concessions can ever be given. IMO

That opinion is NOT pro-Israeli, just common bleein' sense for ANY government under constant attack.

I pointed out your mistake.

"Rules of war" do exist

"War crimes" do exist

Israel has committed war crimes.

You have no response to those points, I see.

PigletJohn …. War ‘crimes’ have been committed by both sides and while I’m sure you’d love to deflect/bog down the debate from the point Hamas will prevent any peace settlement all day, the Gaza Strip is waging a WAR with Israel, and Hamas (and those 78% of the voters that elected them) are fully aware that there actions WILL cause Palestinian civilian casualties.

Whether you believe Israel targets civilians or not, their strikes are more surgical in that Hamas’s 7 -10,000 rockets/missiles are made and/or fired from Gaza and are a legitimate target for Israel. Whereas when Hamas fires thousands of missiles that are UNGUIDED into Israel, by definition there is NO attempt to narrow the casualties to those in the Israeli military, so EVERY ONE is meant to terrorise Israeli citizens – and hardly the basis for a ‘softening’ of Israeli government, and those electing them, to ‘the Palestinian problem’.

But I get it, Hamas does not want peace, it wants a war, and while personally I wouldn’t even challenge Ziva from the series NCIS to a pillow fight, Hamas is waging war against a country that has had to militarise BECAUSE of all the physical and verbal threats/wars, since it’s existence – a modern day Sparta, if you will, but for it’s own defence – and while they may look individually geeky in their uniforms, Hamas chooses to take on an effect fighting force that EXISTS to keep IT’S CITIZENS SAFE from external threats.

So Hamas and their apologists, ‘Meet the Spartans’, and whether you are choosing to wage a military war, or periods of ‘Cold War’, where rockets aren’t being fired but you KNOW that every Israeli citizen, especially in the south, wakes up knowing each day could bring a Hamas terrorist attack – you cannot expect a one-sided war, especially sending unguided rockets/missiles at Israeli citizens. To greatly limit your own civilian casualties, stop sending thousands of rockets into Israel.

But Hamas can not do that, they were NOT elected in 2006 to negotiate, they had a decisive mandate for war, by those same civilians now being killed/injured on the Gaza Strip of land - well by those less than 50% of the population ELIGIBLE to vote, speaking/voting on behalf of those under aged to vote.

So you mean that you have reversed your earlier position that "War is war, there is no rule book,"?

Can you tell me please:
What year was Hamas elected?
What year did Israel start shelling and bombing Gaza?

It will be interesting to see if you know which happened first, and which was the response.

PigletJohn .... is that all you have got, word knit-picking, no wonder there are 7,000 posts on here saying the same thing, clearly with the prospect of several thousand more - as myopic Hamas apologists can’t for the life of them, acknowledge that Hamas’s election by the Palestinian people was a peace negotiation, ‘game changer’.

Hamas was elected in January 2006, but re shelling of Gaza, are you going to attempt to match every Palestinian terrorist attack/threat/missile act of war against Israel, by the then non elected Hamas formed in the 1980’s and several other Islamic groups within Gaza, with Israeli retaliation?

Lets not forget that in a war where terrorist suicide bombers spit on their targets Human Rights to exist, there is no such thing as ‘terrorist rules’, so if Israel can pre-empt an attack against them to protect their citizens by taking out the enemies ordinace/leaders, then why not.

Tell me, when Israel decided to withdraw all their thousands of settlers from Gaza (and some from the West Bank) in 2003 as an act of faith, did the Palestinian people see Israel’s actions, as a SIGN OF WEAKNESS, rather than the start of a peace process to build on?

As, PigletJohn, it beats the hell out of me WHY the Palestinian people elected a known Islamic Jihadist group to represent them in future negotiations, when Hamas has no interest in negotiating, OTHER than to gain concessions from Israel that strategically INCREASES their war effort on Israel – and the government of Israel, their citizens, and every western government that has designated Hamas a terrorist organisatio, e.g. the E.U, know this.

Can you tell me the Palestinian voters thinking behind this please?

I can't see a response to my points in that.

PigletJohn ... why can't you see a response to your questions in this paragraph?

"Hamas was elected in January 2006, but re shelling of Gaza, are you going to attempt to match every Palestinian terrorist attack/threat/missile act of war against Israel, by the then non elected Hamas formed in the 1980’s and several other Islamic groups within Gaza, with Israeli retaliation?"

Now can you answer mine above please

When Israel decided to withdraw all their thousands of settlers from Gaza (and some from the West Bank) in 2003 as an act of faith, did the Palestinian people see Israel’s actions, as a SIGN OF WEAKNESS, rather than the start of a peace process to build on?

As, PigletJohn, it beats the hell out of me WHY the Palestinian people elected a known Islamic Jihadist group to represent them in future negotiations, when Hamas has no interest in negotiating, OTHER than to gain concessions from Israel that strategically INCREASES their war effort on Israel – and the government of Israel, their citizens, and every western government that has designated Hamas a terrorist organisatio, e.g. the E.U, know this.

Can you tell me the Palestinian voters thinking behind this please?

"Can you tell me please:
What year was Hamas elected?
What year did Israel start shelling and bombing Gaza?"

I gather you don't know when Israel started bombing and shelling Gaza.

Is it linked to the PLO, and then Hamas, and their attacks on Israel????