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

Considering they are at war against Hamas, pretty sure they accept their existence?

The last paragraph of McGuirk's article:

"The Taoiseach, really, should apologise. It would be the decent thing to do. The problem is that doing so would cause him immense political pain as he was accused of bowing to the Israeli Government. That, in itself, is evidence perhaps that our issues on this front go well beyond the politicians."

The last sentence begs the question: Is antisemitism endemic in Ireland?

Yes it is.

Actually, no i take that back. I don't believe Irish people are anti Semites, I do believe they are guilty of bias against Israel because they believe Ireland and Palestine to be similar and Israel is like the big bad British.

Which is wrong obviously.

No and its a weak and disingenuous argument to infer that based on what Leo said. Sad to see posters here with so little respect for ireland not be satisfied with Israelis publicly dressing down our ambassador that they want us to prostrate ourselves even further for Israel.

The government has gone out of its way to not offend Israel during the conflict even though the Dail would have supported this yet posters here still play the lazy antisemitism card.

I read that they were mainly women and children so what they are accused of I really don't know. Israel seems to have a thing about women and children anyway. It is odd that the numbers arrested almost exactly match the numbers released. Could be some kind of game.

2 million Nazi's in the West Bank and they are bombing innocent non-Nazi women and children in Gaza.

Israel looked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and saw how effective Ukraine have been on the PR front.... And then went with Russia's PR stance instead. We're at the stage where they just spew anything and everything to see what sticks.

These are your words, not mine.

But just so you know, there was very specific conversation on here in the weeks after Oct 7th where people were arguing that because 40 babies had been beheaded that Israel's response was justified.

We now know that 40 babies had not been beheaded and so is relevant to point out that if people were justifying a response on a falsehood, then surely they should reconsider their support for that response.

This thing about women and children, they're not considered adults until they are 18 years old. And its taboo to ill treat women of any age (and rightly so). And Hamaz make major propaganda out of " Look at the big bad Israelis, arresting and brutalizing Women and Children from Gaza" There's a scene from American Sniper, where Chris spots an Iraqi watching an American patrol through binoculars, and alerts the convoy and HQ. Then the man vanishes, and Chris calls off the alert. But then a bourka clad woman appears with a small boy beside her and starts walking towards the patrol, and Chris again alerts the convoy and HQ, who warn him to use his discretion, and reminds him that its 11 years imprisonment for killing non-combatant's. Chris keeps his attention on the pair, and as the woman is not swinging her arms, he decides that she's carrying something. This is confirmed when as the near the convoy, she pulls a bomb out from underneath her Abaya, and hands it to her son. As the child walks towards the convoy, Chris kills him. Then the woman runs forward, picks up the bomb and also heads for the convoy before Chris kills her too. The point is that shouting "FOUL" when the Israelis kill of capture Palestinian women and children, it's because they have plenty of experience of just what these Women and Children are capable of. In an equal world of course, neither Hamas or any other terrorist (or other) organizations would use women and children as cannon fodder, but in the real world, that's not how the game is played. Unfortunately. There was a case in one country that I was in, where the inhuman bastards placed a suicide belt on a 7- 8-year-old girl, completely hidden under her abaya, and sent her down the street to a checkpoint. In this case, she was lucky because the soldiers were alert, and managed to disarm the belt. But it goes to show, under these circumstances, with a crowd of women and children taunting and throwing stones etc.....is one of them carrying something more lethal? Yet the world jumps in (as its meant to do) with condemnation of the merciless behavior of the Israeli's, while completely ignoring just why the Israelies are behaving like that?

You are right when you say that Hamas / Gaza Palestinians have been attacking Israel for years, and Israel has been responding accordingly, and it could have well continued like this, until Hamaz decided to up the ante, and launched a brutal, murderous attack, which would trigger the response that they knew it would, all-out war in other words. Which it has done. And now the problem is that while it was relatively easy to start this war, it's going to be far from easy to stop it.

There are still people being held. You know full well they can't/won't refute anything and jeopardize their safety or release. Or maybe you just are that naive.

Just like the hostages on camera waving goodbye to their captors while a Hamas gunman tells them to keep smiling. They loved it and had a great time too.

Very handy for Hamas, a bit coincidental that they don't control all the hostages.

It is working out exactly as Hamas planned it to. Poke the wasp's nest hard enough, and they will swarm out and attack you. And make no mistake, Hamas knew exactly what it was doing, down to the public outcry about innocent civilians being killed and injured in the ensueing bombing. Makes for great propaganda in the Arab world, and condemnation of Israeli brutality in the west. Exactly as planned by Hamas.

It has been quite outstanding how they have managed the propaganda and how they keep it going even as one lie after another is revealed:

(1) There are no tunnels

(2) There are tunnels but there are no tunnels under hospitals and schools

(3) There are tunnels including under hospitals but they were built by the Israelis

(4) There are tunnels including under hospitals originally built by Israelis and augmented by Hamas but they are not used as command centres

(5) There are tunnels including under hospitals originally built by Israelis and augmented by Hamas that were used as command centres but not anymore

And so the lie evolves, and people keep swallowing it.