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

I grew up in the Bogside in the 80's. The provos ran the show, same in creggan and galliagh.

Fair enough, I hadn't paid attention to who you were responding to, and TBF I don't know really know that poster's views on Israel/Gaza.

I'm not an IRA supporter, but I do think that there are major differences all the same. Some of those IMO are really because the nationalist community would not have accepted IRA tactics of deliberate targeting of civilians, something which rarely ever happened (a couple of incidents like Kingsmill did occur, but as they generally did more harm to the IRA's reputation within the nationalist community than anything else, that actually proves my point.)

And there was just no equivalent of babies/small children being deliberately targeted because of their religion/ethnicity - that just didn't happen. The children killed at Omagh for example were mostly Catholic - and again, the revulsion at the deaths of children meant that that was the end of dissidents' attempts to keep going militarily (and not because the children were catholic).

Also, I don't think you can seriously call a "suicide by proxy" a suicide bomber. It's not suicide when the person getting blown up has been forced to carry the bomb, often because his family was being held hostage and threatened with them being killed instead. I'm not sure it's "better" but it's certainly more brainwashed when the foot soldiers are ready to blow themselves to bits. I suspect that where religion comes into it though. The IRA didn't have that aspect, despite being considered "catholic" especially by outsiders.

You're late to the party with your talking points. The lads moved on from conflating all Palestinians with Hamas weeks if not months ago. The river to the sea stuff has faded away over the last couple of weeks too. They seem to have mostly given up accusing everyone of anti-Semitism so if you were planning on using that next maybe reconsider.

"between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty."

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/original-party-platform-of-the-likud-party

if "from the river to the sea" is genocidal, so is Likud.

"Leaves Gaza in control of Hamas"

And what exactly would they be controlling? Rubble piles, destroyed infrastructure, virtually no hospitals.

Gaza is a wasteland.

Where you there?

Good one.

Imagine if Palestine set a deadline of Hannukah, there'd be no end of the cries of antisemitism.

Every day Israel tells us they view this as a religious crusade of theirs.

Could you explain your thinking here please? Surely it's not a "we're allowed kill the same number as you" kind of thing? Especially when the people being killed are Gazan civilians by the Gazan police/military forces. Surely it depends on why the kid was shot dead?

The thing is, civilian deaths happen in war. There are rules about trying to minimise those, and if it turns out that Israel could have achieved their legitimate war aim of removing Hamas from power because of the October attacks without killing nearly so many civilians, then Israel will, quite rightly, be found guilty of committing war crimes and possibly even of attempted genocide.

(I don't believe the attempted genocide thing can possibly stick, but that's an aside here. War crimes - maybe. And if so, I have no problem saying everyone responsible should be punished severely. Again, an aside, but since you brought it in...)

But the point is that we don't decide that murders by criminals are unimportant because there's also a war going on nearby. Every single deliberate death matters. Despite the war. Surely that goes without saying? We didn't give up on non-political violence and killings in Northern Ireland just because of the Troubles, after all. What the British used to call ODCs, so I guess in some ways maybe they did agree with your take on it. Personally I don't agree.

If Hamas killed the teenager because Hamas, as the elected government and in charge of justice, were trying to distribute food fairly and he wanted to steal it from more deserving civilians, that would be harsh summary justice - but fair in the context.

If however they wanted to steal it from an aid agency for their soldiers, leaving the Gazan families it was intended for to go hungry, do you really think that would be a minor indiscretion, so long as they killed fewer of their own civilians in that way than Israel has at war? Seems to me that would actually show that Israel were, in the longer term, giving Gaza perhaps its only chance at a decent future by removing a murderous group like that from having that sort of life and death power over "their" citizens.

Doesn't matter all that much, it's the fact of being found guilty that hurts - especially for a country like Israel that considers itself to be a country of law and order. There's no police force that takes a rogue country to international jail anyway, it's all about reputation.

That's not relevant here though - Israel's behaviour would not justify Hamas murdering one of its own citizens if he were only trying to get the food they were stealing for their soldiers - would it?

Beep if you support the regime who’s moved passed intent and is actually doing the genocide ^

So you didn't pull over your car, get out, and join the protest against genocide with your own placard calling for hamas to release the hostages?

Walk the walk

Those are people taking time out of their day to express speech against an issue that bothers them

And you drive on and make pithy complaints that they aren't protesting what you'd like to protest with all your free time today (but aren't).

You're dead right there - they might consider it but pretty much the rest of the world knows that they are just another terrorist state.

Why would they be waving flags with Mickey Mouse on them?

Perhaps it was a rally in support of Walt Disney that you saw?

Genocide, if you prefer. I wasn't trying to diminish the importance of the crime.

As for Northern Ireland, it came up - yet again - only a few posts ago. The only reason it's relevant here is from my personal experience of normal crime continuing as usual during the troubles, and that one does not cancel out the other. Which is what you seemed to be doing when you dismiss a killing of a Gazan by Hamas on the pretext that far more Gazans have been killed by Israel. Do you think that's a comfort to the boy's family or something?