Rough Day In Israel. Anyone Heard From Anyone ?

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


It makes there lives better cause they dont have israeli soldiers patrolling their cities and running their daily lives. Seems to me that when the Israelis went back in to their cities, they considered this a bad thing, and they are again asking the Israelis to leave.

Why build the roads - cause with the IDF no longer patrolling the villages ( in area A) , the settlers didnt want to have to drive through them - not surprising, considering that the villagers have a tendency to throw stones and shoot bullets at the settlers vehicles (and yes, i know that on occasion settlers have done the same)

And why would the Pals want to use those roads - the existing road system linked their towns and villages - and while they were still subject to closures (where the roads went through areas b or C) that was no worse than before.

The point was that as the byroads grew in number and grew to intersect palestinians roads more and more traveling between Palestinian vilages, which is something that most of them needed to do regualry, became an incredibe hassle. The number of checkpoints mushroomed. If anything, people had less freedom to move with all these checkpoimts than before the Oslo agreements. this not only increase resentemnt, but stiffled trade.

[Panag]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Maybe we could bury him alive with the war criminal Sharon.

would that be before or after you , ...........

[Panag]

Originally posted by Agathon


Golda Meir - incompetent: nearly had Israel beaten.
Yitzhak Rabin
Menachem Begin - war criminal
Yitzhak Shamir - wasn't he a thief?
Shimon Peres - lame duck
Yitzhak Shamir (again) - thief
Yitzhak Rabin(again)
Bibi Netanyahu - incompetent: ruined the peace protest
Ehud Barak - a good man in a bad situation
Ariel Sharon - war criminal

Leaders of the Palestinians:

Yasser Arafat. - terrorist, freedom fighter: corrupt


Yeah, the Palestinians only made one mistake. Israel has managed to produce only one good leader in the last 30 years.

you did forget to include your own name , ..........

[Sirotnikov]

Can somebody explain to me how the first attack was terrorist? All but one of the killed/injured were soldiers, and were legitimate military targets...

It would be a case of guerilla, if the target was clearly a military base and soldiers.

But Hamas is known to target civilians, and the bus stop is a civilian installation. Yes, it does also service soldiers. But the same logic could be applied to each terract. Gnu has already claimed that targetting cafes and clubs is alright because soldiers probably hang out there.

But unlike the terrorists, Israeli soldiers wear uniforms, have their own bases and installations. So when coming to pick a military non-civilian target, according to rules of war, the palestinains have a wide array of choises.

The fact that they prefer to target clearly civilian servies (cafes, clubs, buses) exposes them as terrorists and not guerilla warriors.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Only if theres a war going on? Is there a war going on? Between who and whom? Between Israel and Hamas? If so then doesnt Israel have the right to attack Hamas members at will? And dont they have the right to attack PA when it gives shelter to Hamas? Can a state be at war with a non-state actor? Is Israel at war with the PA? What are the implications for that? IF so dont they then have the right to capture Arafat?

You know, this is funny. The justification for Israel's strikes in the West Bank is that they're at war with X terrorist orgs, but now they're not at war with Israel?

I always thought that a state of war was a symmetric relation...

[Sirotnikov]

You know, this is funny. The justification for Israel's strikes in the West Bank is that they're at war with X terrorist orgs, but now they're not at war with Israel?

I always thought that a state of war was a symmetric relation...

Personally, I think that LOTM is wrong on this.

I do agree that there is a war going on.

See my reply above.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

Can somebody explain to me how the first attack was terrorist? All but one of the killed/injured were soldiers, and were legitimate military targets...

It would be a case of guerilla, if the target was clearly a military base and soldiers.

But Hamas is known to target civilians, and the bus stop is a civilian installation. Yes, it does also service soldiers. But the same logic could be applied to each terract. Gnu has already claimed that targetting cafes and clubs is alright because soldiers probably hang out there.

But unlike the terrorists, Israeli soldiers wear uniforms, have their own bases and installations. So when coming to pick a military non-civilian target, according to rules of war, the palestinains have a wide array of choises.

The fact that they prefer to target clearly civilian servies (cafes, clubs, buses) exposes them as terrorists and not guerilla warriors.

Targetting a group of soldiers in a nightclub is equivalent, in my mind, to targetting a particular vehicle containing militants on a streetcorner. Targetting the club itself just because soldiers occasionally hang out there (but the population is not almost wholly military) is of course, wrong (more wrong than fighting a stupid war is per se).

But your logic falls down in drawing a conclusion wrt a single act based on probabilities from previous acts.

If I am a notable bank robber, and walk into a bank to deposit a cheque then you cannot say I committed another bank robbery.

The organisation utilises terrorist modes of attack without compunction, but this particular attack appears to be non-terrorist. And yes, I wish that the Palestinians would restrict themselves to killing soldiers. It would put them on the moral high ground, which the current strategy does not.

[Sirotnikov]

Targetting a group of soldiers in a nightclub is equivalent, in my mind, to targetting a particular vehicle containing militants on a streetcorner.

I disagree.

IDF has a wide range of facilities and is open to legitimate targetting.

Hamas - are not. Hamas, as an illegal combatant organization, has no specific military only facilities, or recongisable combat gear. As such, when Israel comes to choose Hamas targets, it has not "real" non-dual targets, but only targets that are both civilian (cars, private houses) that double as C&C centers, HQs, laboratories, barracks, transportation vehicles and so on.

But your logic falls down in drawing a conclusion wrt a single act based on probabilities from previous acts.

It wasn't my point at all. I was using it as a minor point to establish a pattern of behaviour in Hamas, as "character evidence".

My point was, that unlike Hamas, the IDF has recognizable bases, uniforms, centers of comand, barracks and so forth.
And as such, if Hamas are to choose a 'legitimate' (non-civilian) target, they have more than plenty to choose from.

However, they specifically chose a civilian target. A bus stop. It is not a designated military bus or truck, but a civilian utilitiy that soldiers often employ. If they were to seek a military target - they would have to target a military bus or truck. And such exist.

By the same logic, they could have targetted a train station, and claim that many soldiers take the train to their bases (or back home).

However this would be misleading, since the bus stop, like the train station, is not clearly a military installation but is very clearly a designated civilian installation. And military installations are not at all lacking.

Thereby, the Hamas have knowingly targetted a civil installation, ignoring designated military targets.

Soldiers in a civilian bus station, just like soldiers in a train, or on a street or in a club, are a coincidence. They do not make the civilian service they use, a "military target".

This is not true with regards to Hamas though, for the reason I mentioned earlier. They specifically and intentionally lack designated military targets. They intentionally use only double-use facilities. They do this in an attempt to disguise and make their destruction more difficult.

This is against warfare conventions, and according to same conventions, this attempt to duisguise within civilian population, in an exceptional way, makes their immediate sorrounding a legitimate military target.

[Ecthy]

Siro

Arafat

[Ned]

Very intelligent conversation here.

I still believe the central question is how does one get the PA to itself eliminate Hamas, IJ and other terrorist groups. There seem to be three views:

1) appeasement of the PA by making concessions;
2) weaken Arafat so that more cooperative leadership can get real power - but the new leadership would need concessions to move against Hamas, etc. So this is the same as 1)
3) keep up the military pressure against Hamas, IJ, etc. and make no concessions to PA until they themselves begin to cooperate and begin active suppression of terrorism. Under this scenario, the PA itself will force Arafat to comply or force him to leave making the weakening of Arafat by Israel irrelevant.

I suggest that the only reasonable course of action is 3). At some point the average Palestinian will become convinced that they have no choice but to stop terrorism if they are to have any hope for a better future. At that point, the terrorists will no longer be heroes to the average Palestinian.

[TheStinger]

Does nobody(who wants to send in the tanks) think that maybe the Palestinians aren't well treated by the Israelis and this might just have something to do with people blowing themselves up.

[Ecthy]

I'm sorry if I interrupted the intellectual flow herein, Ned.

[Alexander's Horse]

Arafat just phoned me, says he's fine.

[Ecthy]

He circumcised too?

[Eli]

The weekend is going to be interesting.