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

I think you need to read a history of the Middle East with a focus on the persecution of the Jews.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_history#The_Roman_period_(63_BCE_%E2%80%93_135_CE)

"Jewish communities across Cyrenaica, Cyprus, and Egypt were almost entirely obliterated due to the harsh Roman response to the Diaspora Revolt."

To be fair, I am beginning to think that your posts aren't due to prejudice, but more due to your lack of knowledge and understanding of the historical position.

Too many people on these threads appear to believe that the history of Israel/Palestine began in 1948.

Even if every person injured by a pager was a civilian, the court would have to prove that the intention

Wow. You never miss an opportunity to provide support for Israel's crimes. I wonder what that tells us about you?

That said, you must be referring to an Israeli court, because any court in any other country would immediately condemn the perpetrators to life in prison in the Hague.

Your bit about proving the intention is just sheer nonsense; You might be confusing the fact of this crime with the specific crime of genocide where intention is key. But even then, on this occasion, the intention was clearly to maim or murder, and to do so indiscriminately. You know - the explosives didn't get into the pagers by mistake, it was intentionally put there. So even if you were correct about whatever crime you are imagining in your brain - intention is proved by the fact of putting the explosives into the devices. Saying in court "Hey don't be so hard on me. There was no intention because I didn't intend to kill Johnny - it was Mickey I intended to kill" doesn't absolve you of murder; if anything it makes it worse.

Where am I providing support for Israel's crimes??

I am pointing out that in order for you to continuously claim that Israel has committed crimes, you need to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, you are the one making false allegations if you can't prove that. I am merely pointing out the huge gaps in your understanding (have already done so on the history of genocide against the Jews).

In this case, the Israeli defence (see article I linked to) will be that pagers were being used as military communication devices, were owned by the military organisation directing terrorism, and that those using them were therefore legitimate targets. There is a conflict, any army engaged in a legitimate conflict has the right under the rules of war to intentionally maim or murder the other side!! All I am saying therefore is that is a reasonable defence to your accusation of a war crime. The proof of intention is this case is that the prosecutors of the war crime have to prove that the intention was to kill and maim civilians and not kill and maim Hamas operatives. Given that Hamas owned the pagers and used them for military communications, it will be close to impossible to prove intention.

I am not commenting on the morals or otherwise of the Israeli action. I am just pointing out that the shouting and roaring about war crimes is all just shouting and roaring. These things happen in conflicts, and that is a reality, and has no bearing on whether I believe the conflict is necessary or morally right or morally wrong.

You really seem to have a problem with other posters parsing and analysing your wild accusations against Israel because it affects your single-minded simplistic narrative of Israel bad, everyone else good. The Middle East is a lot more complicated than that.

I had a look at your wikipedia link, and of course a great many of the references are not primary sources, nor even secondary sources - but modern commentators on secondary sources. Or even later sources.

Even primary sources are suspect unless there is a contrasting source. By way of example, I'd suggest you read Caesar's De Bello Gallico. You won't be long working out that it is propaganda, and that there is probably some truth there. But it's not hard to see that the details are made up, and much is glossed over.

Ditto one of your article's older sources, Philo of Alexandria. Here's a quote from him - in translation of course so who knows what he actually wrote - used as a reference in your article:

Flaccus Avillius succeeded Sejanus in his hatred of and hostile designs against the Jewish nation. He was not, indeed, able to injure the whole people by open and direct means as he had been, inasmuch as he had less power for such a purpose, but he inflicted the most intolerable evils on all who came within his reach. Moreover, though in appearance he only attacked a portion of the nation, in point of fact he directed his aims against all whom he could find anywhere, proceeding more by art than by force; for those men who, though of tyrannical natures and dispositions, have not strength enough to accomplish their designs openly, seek to compass them by manoeuvres.

Clearly propaganda. And extremely modern in his hatred and hostile designs against the jewish nation. (Did they even use the term nation back then? I don't think so.)

Now, I use Wikipedia a lot, we all do - but it's not accepted as a source for academic work, and there is a good reason, which is that any individual or any group with an agenda can edit it for their own purposes. I certainly wouldn't use it to find objective information of the Ukrainian war, Donald Trump, Joe Biden. And never, ever for objective information on anything Israel might want to inform us on.

Are you seriously suggesting that the first genocide against the Jewish people was the Holocaust?

kill and maim Hamas operatives. Given that Hamas owned the pagers

Well, this is news to me. Really lad, I understand that you are not a professional and are not paid to post here, but can you not even distinguish between Hamas and Hezbollah?

That is a very strange post. It reads to me that you are suggesting that your opinion is somehow superior to mine because I am not paid to post here, which makes me wonder are you implying that you are paid to post?

You wrote that the pagers were owned by Hamas, and that Hamas operatives were killed by them. i.e. in Gaza.

Are you not even aware that Hezbollah owned the pagers. In Lebanon.

Sorry, but that's a pretty dumb mistake to make.

And no, I am certainly not paid to post here.

Sorry again, I should have left it at Primary sources. Of course they are not neutral either; but the reality is that your sources are neither primary nor do they make a pretence at being neutral.

But that's for a different thread: this is about the current events in Palestine, not ancient history.

There is a history forum, and also another on Religion and Spirituality if that's what grabs your fancy.

Oh I agree with you, the paid to post stuff is nonsense, so have a go at the poster who introduced it to the thread.

How far do we need to go back to legitimise the wanton murder and destruction carried out by Israel for 15 months?

Ah stop. We had this exact same discussion around 9 months ago with respect to the Israeli treatment of healthcare workers, healthcare facilities, patients and ambulances. 100% they have broken IHL and committed war crimes on that aspect alone. Name a war where the attackers caused every single hospital to be non operational. What they did was disgusting and you know it. They targeted the fragile healthcare system from Day 1 and some heroes here validated it with "command and control" nonsense (not saying you did). The courts will decide. Too late for the victims though.

You'll be quoting Bird Law next.

Supporting Israel as a 'neutral' is absolutly nuts if you research the treatment of Palestinians by Israelis over the last few decades, then again people probably supported Russia when they attacked Ukraine.

Maybe you have family or you're connected to Israel in someway, that is the only way I can reconcile that someone could support them. It is like saying 'I support Hamas', which is crazy also. Both are despicable and either should not be 'supported' like it's a football team.

You seem to take us for fools. What the Romans did or didn't do is completely irrelevant. Any historical genocide (by which I mean long ago, not 75 years ago) is irrelevant to what is going on today in Palestine.

Maybe you would like to discuss the German slaughter in Namibia, and its similarities to what Israel is doing today? I mean the way they herded the Herero and Nama people into certain areas, and genocided those peoples? The forerunner of the Nazi concentration camps, medical experiments on humans included. A Holocaust indeed, although numbers were lower than in WW II. And so so similar to what Israel does.

For another view of Israel and the myths it is based upon, have a read of this article. A bit hyperbolic in places, but so, so close to the truth in so many aspects.

The whole ceasefire has already turned into another Zionist distraction effort.

They claim they've ended the war when in reality all they've done is shift it to another location. Disgusting, and the media have fallen for it hook, line and sinker.