Hamas strike on Israel - mod warning in OP updated 19/10/23

see your third point? there haven't been elections in gaza since 2006.

as for the way to peace, what you've just described is a surrender, and a surrender is no basis for peace.

250 lawyers submit legal advice to UK government that they must act or they will be in breach of the Geneva conventions.

Letter in full. KC is a King's counsellor

Anyone revolted against Hamas? No.

If there are such fierce resistance fighters why they didn't revolt against Hamas? Why they didn't reach out to the other side for negotiations? They agree with Hamas and they celebrate their terrorism.

Hamas/Gaza had plenty of opportunities to find a solution since 2006, didn't they? They rejected all of them. They chose a coup, violence, war and terror repeatedly (see the stats below). They want to destroy Israel as an entity, they don't want to negotiate, they don't want to compromise on a two-state solution. OK, but then if you repeatedly attack a neighbouring soveign state and maintain that the state should cease to exist what do you expect the state will do? Thank you for that? Everything is of their own making. If a two-state solution not acceptable - they will get nothing in the end. They overplayed their hand hugely and all of the people of Gaza will suffer because of it.

I know very well the leaps and bounds that were made in the depiction of war in the movies and what film makers can get away with in the modern times, without restrictions like the Hays code or imposed cuts by organisations like MPAA or the BBFC restraining them. In the "modern" era - since the end of the 60's - movies have been able to show much more blood letting and violence until we've reached a point where a director can show, if he wishes, how excruciating a particular wound can be or what it looks like to see a human body blown apart. One can debate how necessary, or how good or bad it is for ordinary viewers and, indeed, the advances in special effects make up has allowed film makers of all kinds to indulge in all sorts of grisly scenes. From Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch) to Steven Spielberg (Saving Pvt. Ryan) and beyond, the horrific nature of war has been more open to modern era film makers than it would have been to someone like Lewis Milestone (All Quiet on the Western Front). It's unfortunate, therefore, that the impact that's often desired by the film maker is usually lost on far too many people in the audience, most of are there only to see a "cool" movie.

In addition, I have interviewed a number of WWII veterans in my time, who have told me directly what it is like to be in combat (including what the smell of human death was like*). My own father was in the Royal Engineers during the war and my mother was an evacuee from the Channel Islands. I've been studying that particular conflict since my dad put Len Deighton's 'Battle of Britain' into my hands when I was still in single figures, so forgive me if I blow my own trumpet and say that I know a thing or two about the Second World War after 40 years of reading about it.

That being said no film, Hollywood or otherwise, has truly depicted war and most people who've seen it up close would tell you that there's only been a handful of them that have come near to replicating the experience. And, as far as I'm concerned, there's probably only about 5 war films that I would consider to be truly great.

As to the question of whether a Marine or any other service man would happily drop the atomic bomb, I'm sure a possible majority would. But that's neither here nor there to be frank about it. Asking someone who's been fighting face to face with an enemy if they've wipe out an enemy isn't going to produce to most balanced of replies, is it? However, that doesn't take away from the fact that the actual scientists who created the weapon petitioned Truman to restrain himself from using it because of the stage that the war was at in 1945. The likes of Leo Szilard and many of the people working on the weapon saw no need to use it at that particular juncture because they were aware of the terrifying nature of the weapon they helped give birth to and what dropping meant for the future. The end of the Second World War was already in clear sight, but what many people in the Manhattan Project also had clear vision of was what the decades after the war would look like too, and that scared them more than a couple of months added time to a conflict that was already in it's sixth year.

Look, I'm sure that we could argue to the death about the necessity of dropping the bomb, and I'm aware of all the arguments for and against. I've been having that particular conversation for many years. But, for myself I would fall into the camp of it being completely unnecessary when all things are considered. A position that's held by many historians, and no not "revisionist" historians, but people like Richard Overy or the aforementioned Basil Liddell Hart.

Into the bargain, many historians will tell you that the atomic bombs weren't actually the biggest factor in the Japanese decision to finally give in to unconditional surrender, as they hadn't the time to study the effects of the weapon to any real degree. Instead, it was the Russian declaration of war on the 8th of August (ironic since the Japanese were trying to put out peace feelers through them a month before) and the terrifyingly easy way with which the Red Army had been slicing through the ill equipped, ill trained and underfed Kwantung Army in Manchuria that had the biggest weight in their final decision. The Japanese had rightly assumed two things. 1. the possibility that the US only had a very limited supply of their new super weapon, and 2. that the Russians would have been far more brutal occupiers of the home islands than the Americans would be, should they be allowed get near them. As such, it was decided that to surrender to the Americans was the lesser of two evils.

Anyway, this is the last detour into both movie and WWII territory from me on this thread.

*not unlike clearing dead rotting animals on a farm, one chap said to me.

This is also the main reason why you have a lot of self proclaimed right wingers supporting Israel right now, and I guarantee you that there would be a very different song being sung by those same right wingers if the Knesset was under a left wing custodianship.

Why don't Hamas take independent journalists to the fuel tanks, photographed by Israel, & show that they are empty?

Exactly. They repeatedly chose violence, terrorist attacks, and confrontation. Then they're whining they're the victim if the stronger side retaliates. It's pathetic.

If they could work something out with Fatah, something real could have been achieved on the ground. Contrary, they attacked Fatah militarily instead.

But think about it - why would they want to find agreement? They don't want peace or some conclusion, that would evaporate Hamas, because they wouldn't be needed anymore. Their sole existence is based on keeping the status quo and the repeated cycles of attacks & retaliations from Israel going, this generates their source of income and they can hapily keep stealing it and rule the Gaza prison. Gazans are only their puppets in this whole game. They don't have an iota of regard for Gazans or Palestinian cause itself, that's obvious to anyone with a brain who paid attention the last 17 years. They're mafia thugs of the worst order, with no regard for human life.

Would be more interesting to see what's going in Abbas' head and Fatah in generally. They're keeping very low profile. Probably "wait and see" tactic.

They might secrently be thinking and hoping Israel cleanses Gaza of Hamas for them. It would be better for them too and they can't do it themselves.

Before this occurred, one could go to places like Tel Aviv and enjoy a vibrant nightlife, good food of all types, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, beaches.

El Al started flying to Dublin.

Even Cryanair was flying to Tel Aviv.

Arabs had /have a say in the Israeli government.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians were granted visas to work in Israel to earn money and provide for their families.

Israel worked to establishing peaceful links with many countries in the Middle East.

Israeli's were able to travel to Jordan, Egypt, Morocco, the UAE etc. AND vice versa.

For the first time ever things were on course for an eventual move to stabilisation of links, business and tourism in the ME.

Then HAMAS had to go and feck it up.

In my view this comes down to Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic ideology and straight out brainwashing from birth.

As a person of colour, I encounter this on a daily basis in Ireland. All one has to do is understand Arabic/Urdu and relate to people and their intrinsic views come out almost immediately.

Quite a telling post how you completely ignore the civilian deaths which are a part of 'being better at war'. Disgusting

"Arabs had /have a say in the Israeli government."

Palestinians with israeli citizenship can be elected to the knesset. The millions in the West Bank, Golan, Gaza didn't and don't.

Maybe some Irish people would want to cop on, particularly the modern left leaning folks working for US multinationals.

Some people were shocked when Cosgrove learned an important lesson in minding his own business and not having a pop at Israel.

Remind us again how many Irish work for Dell, Google, Intel, Cisco, Facebook, Oracle?

And how many people realise the founders or cofounders and even current chairperson/ceo are Jewish or of Jewish ancestry?

If Ireland choses, at the beshest of the virtue signalers, to start a dispute with Israel there will be one winner.