This just in: Israel returns fire on Syrian targets from the Golan Heights

[Felch]

Holy crap. So because Israel protects its civilians, Hamas is fighting the way war should be fought.



I guess Israel should lob mortar shells and unguided rockets into the Gaza Strip. That's how Mobius thinks wars should be fought.

[Felch]

Whatever. Seems to me that you're just being pedantic.

I'm saying that in the last major conflict of this type, the Israeli to Palestinian ratio of civilian deaths was > 1:300

Whatever the number, the Israelis always seem to kill far more civilians than combatants; whereas their enemies always seem to kill far more combatants than civilians (the generally accepted way that war 'should' be waged).

Who is the real terrorist in this picture?

Note the use of the phrase "always seem." That way, when it's shown that he's as wrong as usual, Mobi can just hide behind his weasel words.

[dannubis]

You high bro ?

[Felch]

You high bro ?

Have you fixed what you broke in Africa yet? Or are you still ducking responsibility for that one?

[MikeH]

Really crap debating to make some claims without providing evidence and then demand the debate opponent collects the data for you.

[Felch]

I think you're smarter than that, because that's not what I said and you know it. Please prove me right by at least trying to argue with a little maturity.

Let's go back to what you said. You said that Israel kills more civilians that soldiers, and Hamas does the opposite. Therefore Hamas fights wars the way they should be fought. The problem with this shallow view of the world is that it ignores what they're trying to do, and only examines the end result. Hamas is trying to kill as many Israelis as possible, and doesn't care if they're soldiers or civilians. They kill more soldiers because the IDF puts itself in harm's way to protect Israeli civilians. The IDF tries to kill Hamas militants, and minimize civilian losses. They kill more civilians because Hamas doesn't even try to protect the innocent people of Palestine. Hamas doesn't wear uniforms, Hamas indiscriminately bombards Israeli towns and cities, and Hamas does not take adequate measures to separate its military forces from its civilian population. These are all war crimes. But you pretend as though Hamas is righteous simply because Israel successfully protects itself.

Actually I think wars should be fought with peace, instead of prison camp blockades and assassinating the very person that could have been instrumental in instigating a ceasefire.

I think that we should all live in Candyland, and gumdrops should fall from the sky. How about you deal with reality? In reality, Hamas has stated that the destruction of Israel is its goal. You can't make peace with somebody who wants you dead.

[dannubis]

Have you fixed what you broke in Africa yet? Or are you still ducking responsibility for that one?

I told you what my fix was. You had a brain fart and answered besides the question. As you do now...

[Felch]

The UN doesn't fix ****. Saying the UN should handle it is abdicating responsibility.

[Hauldren Collider]

On the rare occasion that the UN does fix something, you're asking for a United States-led military task force to fix things for you.

[Asher]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/for-israelis-like-me-gaza-was-a-moment-of-national-madness/article5583671/

For Israelis like me, Gaza was a moment of national madness

Lisa Goldman
New York — The Globe and Mail

There are few experiences more depressing, frightening and isolating than finding oneself entirely outside the national consensus when your country embarks on a war – a war that the vast majority believe is crucial for self-defence.

In Israel, where I have spent the defining years of my adult life, members of the country’s dwindling political left and peace movement spent this week in powerless silence. I know, because I lived that experience twice – during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah; and then again during Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” invasion of Gaza in the winter of 2008-9.

That was the war that nearly wrecked my relationship with my oldest friend. She dropped by to visit just as I was ending a phone conversation with a colleague in Gaza – or, rather, the conversation was ended when a missile landed with a huge , gut-churning crash right next to his home. When the static on the line cleared, the sound in the background was his 8-year-old daughter, screaming. He had just finished telling me that they had no electricity or running water and his daughter was confined to bed with a psychosomatic paralysis brought on by fear of the bombardment.

Shakily, while setting out coffee and cookies, I recounted this conversation to my friend, whom I had known since I was 17. She responded, “Well, what can I say? He should not have voted for Hamas.” These people want to kill us, she continued, and what’s more they force us to kill them because they use their women and children as human shields.

I hardly spoke to her for six months after that. Not because I hated her, but because the knowledge that my oldest friend and I saw the world so differently, that I could not share my thoughts with her or lean on her for support, was unbearable. She did not understand why I was so upset. It’s just politics, she exclaimed.

With other friends I had a tacit agreement to avoid talking about the war, because we knew we would disagree so fundamentally that we risked damaging our friendship. But when a close friend who voted for a right-wing party has two sons in combat units, meeting for coffee during wartime and not discussing current events is absurd. And lonely.

On social-media platforms, acquaintances who had seemed perfectly sane and moderate in their political opinions were suddenly writing hate-filled, very personal attacks – on their blogs, on my Facebook wall, in long, ranting e-mails. Or bloodthirsty comments about what the Israeli army should do to the Palestinians. Yes, even the children, wrote one acquaintance. They would only grow up to be terrorists.

Around the Middle East, liberal Arab friends were looking at their own media’s images and caught up in their own national consensus. Some backed away quietly, fearing the opprobrium of friends or the unwelcome attention of the security services; others politely indicated that it would be better not to be in contact for a while; and still others – again, people I had known for years – became unnervingly aggressive, levelling accusations that mirrored those of the Israeli right.

Amongst the Jewish Israeli public, polls showed support of the war at well over 90 per cent (Israel has a substantial minority of Arab citizens). Even in ultra-liberal Tel Aviv, I was afraid to express opposition to the war – afraid of being physically attacked. The army called up the reserves.

Gay friends donned their wrinkled army uniforms in response to emergency call-up orders; feminist friends packed lunches for their husbands to take with them as they drove to their army bases. Many told me they weren’t sure the army’s bombardment of Gaza was the right tactic, but surely one had to take some action to stop the south from being bombarded by Hamas rockets. Now was not the time to criticize. We were at war.

Amir Ben David, an editor of Time Out Tel Aviv, wrote in his first post-war column about two men who tried to have him kicked out of his local café upon overhearing him express opposition to the war during a quiet conversation with a friend, over cappuccino and cake. “People think they have the freedom to attack you – even if not physically – just because you express a dissenting opinion,” he wrote.

This sort of hyper-nationalism in wartime is common to all societies. But in Israel the wars and crises come so frequently that there is not enough time to calm down and reflect in between. Ten years after the invasion of Iraq, most liberal Americans wonder ruefully why they supported that war, which cost them so much and achieved so little. Four years after the last invasion of Gaza, most Israelis wondered why the army hadn’t hit harder to stop the rockets regularly launched into Israel’s border towns.

Israel is a small country that is very family oriented. People settle down relatively young with life partners; the norm is to have at least two children. For most Jews, the experience of mandatory military service creates a common language. This is true even for the Israeli left – the Jews who are identified with the anti-occupation movement.

But those who have parted ways with the national narrative and committed to anti-occupation activism are a tiny minority. Within that minority everyone knows everyone else – and their spouses and the names of their children. Most are third– and fourth-generation Israelis, deeply rooted in the place by family history, language and shared experience. When they dissent from the received narrative, even during wartime, they still know they belong to the tribe.

But I had come to live in Israel as an adult, had no family in the country and did not serve in the military. My political views had evolved and shifted leftward after I moved there, so I did not grow up in a leftist milieu. Hebrew is not my mother tongue. And so, while I had many acquaintances and friends, I did not have the uncritical support of my tribe.

This support, I discovered, was crucial for one’s mental health. Some of my most radical friends had siblings and parents who disagreed vehemently and fundamentally with their political views. But in a society dominated by family ties, they could count on the comforting knowledge that there was always a place for them at the Friday-night dinner table. You accept your family because you didn’t choose them and you love them for primordial reasons. But you choose your friends. And when they cannot replace family at a time of crisis the loneliness can be devastating.

[giblets]

Friend: "I think Palestinians shouldn't vote for Hamas if they don't want their children to get bombed."
Writer: "OMG I'm not talking to you ever again!!!!!!!!"

[Hauldren Collider]

This is what's known as the self-hating Jew. When she says "dwindling political left", what she means is that there is no longer a strain of Israeli political thought with even the tiniest influence that believes Israel shouldn't defend itself. Something like 80-85% of Israelis supported the recent operations in Gaza.

[DinoDoc]

Friend: "I think Palestinians shouldn't vote for Hamas if they don't want their children to get bombed."
Writer: "OMG I'm not talking to you ever again!!!!!!!!"

That was the big takeaway from the article. The writer seemed like a self righteous douche.

[Felch]

The wording of this sentence, "In Israel, where I have spent the defining years of my adult life, members of the country’s dwindling political left and peace movement spent this week in powerless silence." led me to believe that she still lives in Israel. She's using the present perfect, instead of the past perfect ("In Israel, where I had spent..."). It turns out that she's left Israel and is living in New York right now. I realize this is one of those pedantic nitpicks, but she's a native English speaker (or French which has essentially the same rule), and she's a journalist. She knows what she's saying, and she knows it's misleading.

There are misleading ****** on the right wing too. Don't trust anybody.

[Asher]

This is what's known as the self-hating Jew.

No need to be antisemitic.