Another Round Begins in The Middle East

[Sirotnikov]

Well then, i hope that you make it through alive and that you don't make too much mistakes when selecting targets

i hope so too.

also, it seemed from your message you think that i am going to participate as a ground soldier. I'm not a combat soldier.

[Sirotnikov]

I'll take up the role of devil's advocate...
Hamas killed two citizens and one soldier, while Israel killed a lot more. Qassam rockets are nothing more than a 'terror'-weapon, but its practical use is very limited, because they can hardly be aimed properly.

[...]
That is irrelevant, because Israel has killed far more Pals than the other way around.

[...]
(I agree it's a good thing Israel tries to limit civilian casualties as much as possible, but it still kills a lot more civilians than Hamas does).

Quantities are not a relevant measurement.

The fact that Hamas are not yet able to get a kill in every launch, does not mean that Israel should wait, and allow rockets to be fired on 4 different cities, until Hamas improve their aim.

We have refrained from a large military action against the increasing threat for some 2 years. Meanwhile Hamas have imported more weapons and know how, and now they can hit more towns and get better kill ratios.

You're right that Hamas is willing to sacrifice people out of pure hatred. With a little bit of empathy you might understand why. Israel as a whole oppresses them and keeps them caged in a miserable strip of land. Also they have some sort of tradition of self-sacrifice. I frown upon it too, but there it is.

Many people, are over estimating the empathy they should feel.

Since 1994, Israel has taken step after step reducing its occupation of Gaza, removing it's control over the land, and eventually removing settlements and disengaging.

Logically, this would have seen Hamas losing power, losing legitimacy and reducing their attacks, as their supposed justification (the occupation) is reduced, and settlements are disbanded.

In reality, we have seen the opposite - each Israeli step has brought Hamas to be bolder and more ferocious in its attacks. That is because its goal has to do with resisting Israel's existence, not the occupation.

You seriously belittle the importance of the anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli sentiment, and the value of Jihad and Istish'had (holy sacrifice) which Hamas, and sadly Arafat's Palestinian Authority have ingrained in the minds of Palestinian youth.

Why then have the Israeli grabbed land ever since 1967?

That's funny, because Israel has only shrunk in size, ever since 1967.
Sinai? Gaza? Autonomy in the West Bank and withdrawal from A areas? Are those land grabs?

Remember Israel is a democracy, but there’s a large portion of religious fundamentalists who want to drive the Pals into the sea just like Hamas wants to drive Jews into the sea. These people want the entire biblical territory of Israel (and possibly even Jordan).

This is completely and utterly incomparable. Israeli religious fundamentalists have never killed Palestinians.
There were rare attempts to set up terrorist blocks and they were harshly dealt with by israeli police and Shin Bet.

Just two months ago Israel has forcefully evacuated a group of Israeli settlers that captured a house in Hebron and caused violence in the surrounding area. We should do that more often, but it certainly NOT similar to what Hamas has done.

Water is scarce in the Middle-East. The wall around the West Bank has grabbed more 'strategic' land than the official borders warrant. Quite often these water sources are 'strategically' incorporated in the Israel side of the wall.

That's bull. What significant water sources were incorporated? Do you really think Israel depends on 2-3 wells? On a dozen of insignificant olive plantations?

The "Wall" myth is a lie. 97% of it is a double fence, around 4 meters high, and has a perimeter road next to it. That's it. The 3% that are walled, are done so exclusively because those areas were used to position snipers who shot at Israelis in near by roads and cities.

That the Palestinian refugees in the neighbouring countries will never be able to retun home is another fait accompli.

Who is reponsible for perpetuation the refugees problem?
What other war in history had perpetuated the refugees and disallowed them repatriation? Where else were children of refugees added to the refugee tally?

That said there's been violence since the Sykes-Picot agreement. It's endemic to the conflict. There was terrorism on both sides when Israel was founded. Irgun, the Stern Gang etc bombed the British as well as the Pals.

That is a grave inaccuracy.
Saying "there was terrorism on both sides" is a wish wash of history, dismissing cause and effect.

Irgun and Stern Gang were founded MUCH MUCH after the arab violence against jewish Yishuv started.

The major arab pogroms against jews were in 1920, 1921 and 1929. The British mandate did nothing to protect the Jews. The Mufti Al-Husseini, the instigator of the worst pogroms was appointed by the British to be mufti of Jerusalem.

The jewish response to the arab raids was setting up "Haganah" ("defence") - a group which trained in defending jewish settlement points.

Irgun was founded in the early 30s, by people who seeked revenge and thought retribution is the proper response to unprovoked arab violence. The stern gang was founded in the 40s. This is much later than the arab violence started and can't be washed away with general statements about how violence was prevalent.

[dannubis]

you say this, and then you expect Israel to not respond when it is constantly showered with Qassam and BM-21 Grad
rockets?

1. I did never deny you / Israel the right of self defense. However, what I have always found repulsive is the "holier than thou" attitude. If you are prepared to kill civilians to meet whatever goal (petty revenge ?) you are no better than HAMAS, just because of my argument above.

2. How many Israeli were killed by those rockets. How many Palestinian civilians have been killed already?

3. I know you are more of an information analyst guy. Even more i+portant for you to choose the right targets.

Anyway, godspeed.

[Robert]

The issue is that the whole thing seems very disproportionate

Hezbollah kidnaps two israeli soldiers, and in return, Israel destroys Lebanon.

Hamas fires home made missiles that kill no one, Israel kills hundreds of people and injures thousands.

I don't say Israel should not defend itself, but that is not the way.

You are clearly not very well informed about this situation.
I've been in that city where every day about 10-15 hamas-rockets were launched to, for a very long time.

Do you know how it is if you have to run to the shelters 10-15 times a day? You only have 40 seconds everytime to do that? You may be hit by such a rocket every day? Many buildings were hit in this period.

The Gaza-invasion is a reaction to that.
Every nation has the right to defend itself.
Israel doesn't aim at civil targets, it fights hamas.
Currently there is a war. The kills Israel makes is in a war situation. Hamas fires rockts months after months to civilian targets in a peace situation.

Same with the Lebanon war.
Over 15000 rockets were fired from Lebanon into ISrael.
That's why Israel responded.
You can't be serious if you claim that Israel should not respond to that.

And you are too spoiled with your western luxerious life if you say things like: "disproportionate".
It's this "proportionate" thing that has been the problem in the middle east.

We western people don't know how to handle war anymore.
War is ugly, and I wish there was no war in this world. And every dead person is one too much.
But unfortunately there is war, and wars must be fought to be ended.
In a war 1 party must lose to get peace, or both parties must lose that much that they both want peace.

It's a shame, but that's how it works.
But since ISrael is not allowed to fight it's war, this problem is there for 60 years already.
There would've been most probably less victims overall if this israelian/palestinian problem would've been really battled 30 years ago already during the 1st intifada.

It's as in Iraqua and Afghanistan, it sounds brutal, but only if you hit the enemy hard, you can win the war.
That's who WWII was won. Both Hitler and Japan were hitted hard.
It's not nice, but now both Germany and Japan are modern nations with civilized people. (except those Japanese adult men who buy girls panties from automats of course)

But because this 'proportional' illusion of us those palestinians are still being lead by idiots. And they're still living in bad conditions. And Israelians still have to fear a rocket or a bomb ever day.

Yes, I know that I sound brutal and uncivilized, but the real uncivilized people are those who let this conflict go on and on with all those blabla-peace talk rounds for years and years.
If two peoples hate each other, they can either grow over it, or fight over it. The first option is the best one, but since that actually is not going to happen overthere, then there's only 1 option. Pick up your armies and fight till one of you guys figures out that giving it up is most probably the best choise.

And we're in the lucky position that Israel doesn't want to destruction of the Palstinian state or all palestians, thus the moment that all Palestinians really want peace, Israel will most certainly stop their counter attacks.

But as long as Hamas keeps on firing rockets at ISraelian civilian targets, I fully support any reaction by Israel.
And I'm glad that Israel is not firing back 1 rocket per day for every Palestinian rocket they received. (which would maybe be proportional in your eyes, but in your eyes this is apparently a game. I don't know which game, not my civilization game, but maybe chess or something)

I am glad that ISrael tries to do a lot of damage to hamas in a short time, opposed to hamas trying to spread their terror to civilians over a long time.

Stupid western people. Only people who've never even faced real danger can say things like: "Oh, but those 15 hamas rockets that hit that Israelian village every day have killed only 2 people so far, that's not that bad"

On another note.
North of the Gaza strip there's a power plant.
It generates power for the gaza strip. (It's israelian)
It's been paid for 50% by the EU and 50% by Israel.
When I was in Israel (1 year ago) Hamas was firing rockets to that power plant every day, trying to hit it. (Why!? it supplies their own energy!)

Then he EU decided to withdraw their support and Israel cuts 50% of the power output to Gaza.
Then hamas complains (!!) about Israel cutting 50% of the power.

And that's what Hamas is doing 24/7: fooling you.
And you fall for it like an 8 year old girl who's wheaps about a dog being punished. (for biting the baby 3 times)

And no, Israel is not as good as hamas in propaganda.
democratic countries can never hide the truth.
In gaza they see no problems creating fake pictures with fake dead kids after a bomb exploded.
There are tons of pictures on the internet where you see so called dead children lying in the rubble with crying mothers next to them, only to see the next picture where both mother and child walk laughing away from the same rubble, where nothing is being seen.

And yes, spoiled western people fall for it, every day.
And I hate it when children die. (though i hate it as much as their fathers die)
But I hope that some sacrifices will make it that many many many palestinian kids will have a bright future, like the German kids of 50 years ago.
And that can only be done if their crazy leaders will be removed.

And the longer it takes, the more the crazyness of these 'leaders' has infected the entire population.
But if you want no future for the Palestinian kids, then you should ask for a 'proportional' response. That'll bring back the status quo!
And you can be proud about your ideals. Because who cares about reality. Isn't that what you're thinking? Maybe they can make peace through talking tomorrow! Hamas and Israel should start talking! MAybe they can finally make peace! Yeah, sure.
In fairy tale world.

[Traianvs]

Quantities are not a relevant measurement.

The fact that Hamas are not yet able to get a kill in every launch, does not mean that Israel should wait, and allow rockets to be fired on 4 different cities, until Hamas improve their aim.

We have refrained from a large military action against the increasing threat for some 2 years. Meanwhile Hamas have imported more weapons and know how, and now they can hit more towns and get better kill ratios.

Bullcrap. They only get decent kill ratios with suicide bombings. Unless they can get some hi-tech Iranian rocketry in there, massive damage to Israel ain't gonna happen. The rockets are homemade crap. The fact that they have more range doesn't change anything since they are randomly fired without any accuracy at all.

Since 1994, Israel has taken step after step reducing its occupation of Gaza, removing it's control over the land, and eventually removing settlements and disengaging.

Logically, this would have seen Hamas losing power, losing legitimacy and reducing their attacks, as their supposed justification (the occupation) is reduced, and settlements are disbanded.

In reality, we have seen the opposite - each Israeli step has brought Hamas to be bolder and more ferocious in its attacks. That is because its goal has to do with resisting Israel's existence, not the occupation.

You are conflating whole chunks of history here. Israel managed to use Arafat as a puppet. He agreed on a PA with limited power over Palestine territory (the A, B, C system). In fact, he had given up ever since he went the peaceful way. He thought going diplo would yield more results. In a way it did because he got the PA and the hope of an independent Palestinian state in the future. But he got fooled by the Israeli. The corruption only intensified his demise vis-à-vis Hamas that was seen as rising up to the needs of the Palestinian people. (I'm not saying they're angels, but that's just how they were seen).

It was only logical that Gaza occupation would have to end someday. you can't keep it up forever. But as the Palestinian were being tricked into losing the hope of having the borders of 1967 (and 1948-49 really), Hamas took up the arms where Arafat and his cronies had yielded to the Israeli. Of course the people were not all happy when Gaza was finally cleared. Especially since the world and Israel didn't accept Hamas' victory in the last elections, causing Gaza (after Hamas took power there) to become a huge prison. Hamas would have evolved into a less militaristic and more diplomatic power if it was accepted by Israel. I am 100% sure of that.

And it isn't about Israel's existance. Hamas wants power. They want the corrupt Fatah bastards out so they can represent the Pals. They resent how Arafat and his successors were duped. If Hamas was the sole representative of the Pals, they would be less bent on violence. But, I know you'll not agree on this...

You seriously belittle the importance of the anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli sentiment, and the value of Jihad and Istish'had (holy sacrifice) which Hamas, and sadly Arafat's Palestinian Authority have ingrained in the minds of Palestinian youth.

I know the anti-Jewish sentiments and I've not denied them.

That's funny, because Israel has only shrunk in size, ever since 1967.
Sinai? Gaza? Autonomy in the West Bank and withdrawal from A areas? Are those land grabs?

Haha, the A areas... Yeah Israel managed to divide Palestinian lands into A, B and C areas. Only the A areas are under direct control of the PA, which isn't that much really. Sinai and Egypt are an unrelated matter. I wasn't talking about the size of Israel. It's an undeniable fact that Palestinian territory and that over which the PA has control is a small amount of land. The layout of the fence is another landgrab yes, check out Ma'ale adumim for example.

This is completely and utterly incomparable. Israeli religious fundamentalists have never killed Palestinians.

They don't kill anyone personally, but their political parties advocate a harsh stance against the Pals. I know there is a good portion of Israeli citizens who don't want to worsen the situation (so-called leftists ), but the Shas-party to name one is a hatemongering rabble if you ask me.

That's bull. What significant water sources were incorporated? Do you really think Israel depends on 2-3 wells? On a dozen of insignificant olive plantations?

Why are many farmers near the fence deprived of their wells then. Ah yeah, probably because of 'security' reasons the. I never said Israel needed them desperately. I'm just establishing some facts here.

The "Wall" myth is a lie. 97% of it is a double fence, around 4 meters high, and has a perimeter road next to it. That's it. The 3% that are walled, are done so exclusively because those areas were used to position snipers who shot at Israelis in near by roads and cities.

Wiki says about 90% is fence, 10% is actual wall. That's irrelevant. It's a barrier. Whether or not it's concrete doesn't really interest me.

Who is reponsible for perpetuation the refugees problem?
What other war in history had perpetuated the refugees and disallowed them repatriation? Where else were children of refugees added to the refugee tally?

Not sure what you mean. I suppose it's the naqba, when the war broke out and Palestinians decided to flee their homes. Don't forget the refugees put a lot of strain on the surrounding countries, especially Lebanon and Jordan. They're not too fond of all those refugees either. Anyway, what's done is done I suppose.

That is a grave inaccuracy.
Saying "there was terrorism on both sides" is a wish wash of history, dismissing cause and effect.

Irgun and Stern Gang were founded MUCH MUCH after the arab violence against jewish Yishuv started.

Yeah, not a good thing, because at least they're not zionist.

By the way: I wouldn't want to focus too much on the birthdates of Irgun and so on.. The likes of Jabotinsky and other scum were active a lot earlier anyway. They just became more organised.

The major arab pogroms against jews were in 1920, 1921 and 1929. The British mandate did nothing to protect the Jews. The Mufti Al-Husseini, the instigator of the worst pogroms was appointed by the British to be mufti of Jerusalem.

The jewish response to the arab raids was setting up "Haganah" ("defence") - a group which trained in defending jewish settlement points.

Irgun was founded in the early 30s, by people who seeked revenge and thought retribution is the proper response to unprovoked arab violence. The stern gang was founded in the 40s. This is much later than the arab violence started and can't be washed away with general statements about how violence was prevalent.

Aha, the riots. They were there for a reason. They too are part of the spiralling of 'revenge' that preluded the conflict later on. You might want to mention that they are in response to the fact that the British allowed more and more Jews to immigrate to Palestine despite rulings that only a fixed quotum was to be allowed each year. It was a bit pointless, but they had some success in 1921 when Samuel Herbert ceased the immigration somewhat . Anyway you make it seem as if the riots were there all of a sudden. Tensions had been rising for quite a while. I'm not going to write it all down here, it's all in the history books.

[Sirotnikov]

2. How many Israeli were killed by those rockets. How many Palestinian civilians have been killed already?

How is the number of casualties related to the role of aggressor vs. defender?

Germany lost 7 million people in WWII. The UK lost 500K. I guess the UK's role in the war was a disproportionate reaction, no?

[Sirotnikov]

Bullcrap. They only get decent kill ratios with suicide bombings. Unless they can get some hi-tech Iranian rocketry in there, massive damage to Israel ain't gonna happen. The rockets are homemade crap. The fact that they have more range doesn't change anything since they are randomly fired without any accuracy at all.

Well if you consider rocket fire on your home as such a light nuisance, maybe you'll be willing to take Israel's place on the receiving end? I'll talk to Hamas and see what I can do. You really are a jokester.

This is pathetic. Hamas has been firing rockets on a daily basis Israeli cities for over 7 years, and you're saying that a military attempt to stop that is illegitimate?

You are conflating whole chunks of history here. Israel managed to use Arafat as a puppet. He agreed on a PA with limited power over Palestine territory (the A, B, C system). In fact, he had given up ever since he went the peaceful way. He thought going diplo would yield more results. In a way it did because he got the PA and the hope of an independent Palestinian state in the future. But he got fooled by the Israeli.

You are the one skewing history.

Israel used Hamas as a puppet? To what end? To get terrorist attacks, and rockets? Success

Israel agreed to a PA over the Palestinian territory as a step to test the plausibility of a Palestinian nation side by side. Arafat promised he wavered the militant resistance to Israel and promised to to do peace building. Yeah, that worked.

Of course evil Israel uses everyone as tools. Poor simple minded Arafat. How did he not see it coming?

It was only logical that Gaza occupation would have to end someday. you can't keep it up forever. But as the Palestinian were being tricked into losing the hope of having the borders of 1967 (and 1948-49 really), Hamas took up the arms where Arafat and his cronies had yielded to the Israeli.

Yilded to the Israeli desire to have a peaceful Palestinian nation within defensible borders? Yilded to the 2 state solution?
Hamas does not sell the hope of 1967 borders. It sells the hope of 1948 borders - before Israel was set up.
If you blame Arafat for giving that up, well, I can't really argue with you.

Of course the people were not all happy when Gaza was finally cleared. Especially since the world and Israel didn't accept Hamas' victory in the last elections, causing Gaza (after Hamas took power there) to become a huge prison. Hamas would have evolved into a less militaristic and more diplomatic power if it was accepted by Israel. I am 100% sure of that.

Israel did not accept the Gaza coup by Hamas.
As long as Gaza was controlled by the PA Israel continued to do bussiness, as long as it had security.

Do you expect Israel to simple ignore the fact that Hamas is daily firing rockets? That it crossed the Israeli border and kidnapped an Israeli soldier? That what ever crossings Israel allowed to operate, Hamas had bombed them, trying to kill Israeli soldiers at any expense?

Should we just shrug it off?

nd it isn't about Israel's existance. Hamas wants power. They want the corrupt Fatah bastards out so they can represent the Pals. They resent how Arafat and his successors were duped. If Hamas was the sole representative of the Pals, they would be less bent on violence. But, I know you'll not agree on this...

You are the one being duped.
Learn some Arabic and read their website, or see their Arab world appearances.

Yes, the Hamas government became less militant once they got the responsibilities of government, but Hamas leadership has forseen that and all the people in government lost their political rank, and the movement's leadership has continued fueling plans to continue resistance.

[Sirotnikov]

Haha, the A areas... Yeah Israel managed to divide Palestinian lands into A, B and C areas. Only the A areas are under direct control of the PA, which isn't that much really. Sinai and Egypt are an unrelated matter. I wasn't talking about the size of Israel. It's an undeniable fact that Palestinian territory and that over which the PA has control is a small amount of land. The layout of the fence is another landgrab yes, check out Ma'ale adumim for example.

You blamed Israel of continuous landgrab since 1967...
I proved you wrong with 3 specific examples.

then you go on to say that
1) gaza disengagement is self obvious so it can't be counted
2) sinai is unrelated, so it can't be counted
3) the Israeli withdrawal from areas A and B is meaningless, so it can't be counted.

Well, yeah, if you disregard all the withdrawal Israel made, then Israel didn't make any withdrawals.

Perfect sense.

I'm still flabbergasted as to how the Israeli withdrawal from 100% of the west bank (post 1967), to only small parts of it (areas outside A,B,C) is a land grab.
How were your grades in graduate school? Did you do math?

[Fistandantilus]

Germany lost 7 million people in WWII. The UK lost 500K. I guess the UK's role in the war was a disproportionate reaction, no?

Yeah, because it was a purely UK vs Germany war.
Just a thought but maybe someone in Soviet Union would think that the over 23M casualties they suffered should be put in the equation somewhere?

[Patroklos]

Hamas killed two citizens and one soldier, while Israel killed a lot more. Qassam rockets are nothing more than a 'terror'-weapon, but its practical use is very limited, because they can hardly be aimed properly.

I highlighted the only relevant things you said in that entire post, which happens to reinforce what Felch was saying. There is a word for doing and using something with the charactaristics you describe, war crime.

The Palestininians long ago lost any ability to blame their situation on anyone else but themselves.Their actions are the sole thing generating violence.

[TCO]

Siro: What do you and t'other Israilis think of Americans who cheer for you versus Pals? Does it bouy you up? Irellevant? Think we go too far? Think we should do more than cheer? Appreciate support, but not able to say so since it's politically incorrect?

Dish.

[TCO]

Yeah, because it was a purely UK vs Germany war.
Just a thought but maybe someone in Soviet Union would think that the over 23M casualties they suffered should be put in the equation somewhere?

Was waiting for this. It's an irrelevant point. The good guys should kill as many bad guys as possible and avoid as many good guys dying as possible.

[Sirotnikov]

Yeah, because it was a purely UK vs Germany war.
Just a thought but maybe someone in Soviet Union would think that the over 23M casualties they suffered should be put in the equation somewhere?

Aha good point.

The USSR lost 23 million
Germany lost 7 million
The UK lost only 0.5 million

Since according to the logic demonstrated by several posters, the death tolls is more meaningful that the actual consequences, or who attacked who, we hopefully can clearly agree that the UK has opened a murderous war and massacared millions germans and russians.

Good point.

Those Brtisih bastards...

[TCO]

Damn Russians got what they deserved for that Hitler pact.

[Sirotnikov]

Siro: What do you and t'other Israilis think of Americans who cheer for you versus Pals? Does it bouy you up? Irellevant? Think we go too far? Think we should do more than cheer? Appreciate support, but not able to say so since it's politically incorrect?

Dish.

I appreciate the support.
I think there is basic human decency involved in telling right from wrong and knowing when something is more important than politically correct appeasement.

I am more saddened however by the poor logic and biggottedness of most euros. I hope they wisen up, becaues the fanatic extremist problem is their problem too, and if they won't wake up, if instability ensues in their country, their politically correct positions will not be worth crap.