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

18 months ago, I wrote on here that I saw Hamas as terrorists and I advocated ways that Israel could seek to target their leadership and the capability of the organisation. I posted several times to that effect.

That was 18 months ago. Now, I am not a supporter of Hamas, but I absolutely understand why they exist. And the continuous proclamations as to their evil nature carries less and less weight when they are coming from people and organisations who are doing far worse (to individuals, within the conflict, and in the region) than that organisation is doing.

Hamas arose out of Israel's actions and has persevered in no small part because they play the convenient role of the bogeyman for all of Israel's supporters and chief advocates of their genocidal behaviour.

We watch various idiots on western media every day talk about the sanctity of their own land and we have to listen to their proclamations about how they will use force to defend themselves and their property if they perceive that they are being attacked directly (Trump this week is advocating invading Mexico on the premise that its drug cartels are harmful to America). The US has killed Yemeni people this week purely because its commercial interests were being bothered in the gulf region.

So, can you tell us why Israel, the US and others can advocate for and use violence to defend their interests but the Palestinians can have no one do this on their behalf in the face of a real and intended genocide.

P.S. And I wasn't arguing in bad faith, you just didn't like what I was saying. You should think on why that is the case.

Ireland frequently and consistently fought back against our conquerors. And for the most part suffered the consequences for having done so. That whole experience is why there is so much empathy in Ireland for the suffering the Palestinians continue to face. And as I said, more and more understanding for how they now look to stand up for themselves.

You're digging yourself further in to a hole with this argument.

It could be argued that the most violent and sustained period of resistance against the occupying force (the troubles) was what eventually brought about a pathway to the occupiers finally being off the entire island with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement.

And for the record, I didn't come to this argument equating Hamas with Irish Freedom fighters, I'm just responding to your reference to the Irish experience.

Yes, I read something about that. They sure know how to win friends.

John Hume said the exact opposite though. He - and many others - have always argued that the IRA harmed northern nationalists and that the gains of the civil rights movement were acquired despite the IRA not because of them.

Early on, even before the IRA had made their comeback, Hume advocated a non violent path towards a United Ireland: "(A) United Ireland, if it is to come, and if violence, rightly, is to be discounted, must come about by evolution, i.e. by the will of the Northern majority. It is clear that this is the only way in which a truly United Ireland (with the Northern Protestant integrated) can be achieved."

https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/328101268/Pre_Publication_Redefining_Partition.pdf

He never deviated from that belief. And I think he's a better source than you, TBF.

As for the idea that the GFA is a win for the IRA - no, it's defeat for them, as Brendan Hughes and others knew. That it was a win for the Northern Ireland population as a whole, and the nationalist community among them, is a different point altogether. But a United Ireland has not been the result of the GFA.

This is the strangest argument to make: what sort of "opportunity" to surrender should Israel have given them? Do you think if they'd been asked nicely on Oct 8th they might have said "Ah yeah you're right lads we got a bit carried away. We'll send them back now."?

Because if it's Israel's fault for not giving them the opportunity to hand them back, you might like to explain why 18 months hasn't been enough for the Nepali and Thai governments? After all, they still haven't had all their hostages given back - and they didn't bomb Gaza. Ever.

I've never understood why any of this IRA and Irish independence stuff is being brought up in this thread. There's no comparison whatsoever to what's happening in a place of discussed conflict. This is not having a go at your post.

It's ridiculous. A number of posters seem unable to see the world except in terms of the Northern Ireland conflict. As most of them are not even from Northern Ireland, and barely understand either that conflict or the place itself, you can imagine how inaccurate that is likely to make their understanding of other conflicts.

Perhaps the funniest was when one poster on here called me a unionist and another one an IRA supporter within about 2 posts of each other and based on the same post from me!

Some important differences though that make it a stunningly stupid comparison. I won't list them all, but just from your own post above, Hamas was not an irregular force: they were, and are, the elected government of Gaza, with a police force, a judiciary system, health and education ministries etc. They had all the trappings of government, and were able to organise accordingly. The IRA were never able to do that.

What you really mean there is that Hamas are outclassed and outgunned by Israel, and that is true. But that doesn't make Hamas an "irregular force". When the united forces of FIVE Arab countries attacked tiny incipient Israel in 1948, that didn't make Tsahal an irregular force. And the fact that they beat all those states proves that being more powerful on paper does not necessarily equate to losing the battle. Just as all the equipment and the years of training the Afghan army got from the US didn't make them into a fighting force when push came to shove.

So do you agree that Oct 7th was a genocidal attack on Israeli citizens that meant that there was a current and ongoing (ie not historical) threat to its citizens which the Israeli government was duty-bound to respond to?

(Note that I am not saying that war crimes are ever justified - but that military action, even causing the deaths of innocent civilians, is not necessarily a war crime.)

When did the ICC rule that Israel has committed genocide?? Or even war crimes?

Some posters who are more lurkers these days were adamant that Israel had no plans to take over land in Gaza. Wrong again. They didn't even acknowledge the settlements in the West Bank. The Israelis aren't even trying to hide their intentions now and they have that idiot in the white house to back them.

This was my fear and first thoughts the Day HAMAS launched that vicious assault on civilians. And when Trump was elected it just reaffirmed it. Israel can now annex parts of Gaza and Trump will happily back it.

Do you think the attack against Israel by Hamas on Oct 7th was Genocide?

Agreed - that would be true if I hadn't added the bit at the end:

is addressed as fraud in this opinion piece

Perhaps you missed it? There was no disguise.

Well, except to the extent that Hamas has not signed up to the Geneva Convention, would you like to tell me how it did not fulfil the criteria for crimes against humanity and genocide? Being a terrorist state does not mean you are not capable of committing crimes against humanity. North Korea certainly is.

So in practical terms, especially the right/duty for Israel to try to end the threat against its own civilians, it very clearly was a crime against humanity to which Israel is/was entitled to respond militarily.

The alternative would mean that if a country is sufficiently evil, its neighbours are not legally entitled to act against it even in response to direct attacks.

Article II​

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:​​

(a) Killing members of the group;​

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;​

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;​

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

​(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group​

Source: ​Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of​Genocide​https://www.un.org/en/genocidepreve...n and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.pdf

All but (e) were committed by hamas on or since Oct 7th - and (e) is only unfulfilled because the murdered children rather than raise them elsewhere.

Crimes against humanity are widespread or systematic attacks on the civilian population, irrespective of whether the people are nationals or non-nationals and irrespective of whether the attacks are committed in time of war or in time of peace. 

The attacks can for instance constitute murder, extermination, forced displacement, slavery, rape, torture and other inhumane acts. Crimes against humanity are essentially about the violation of common human rights and values.

Genocide refers to the coordinated and planned destruction of a group of people (as that "group" is defined by the perpetrators). While genocide is almost always accompanied by mass killing, this crime is an attempt to destroy the group, not necessarily to murder every member of that group.

http://www.un.org/en/holocaustremembrance/EWG_Holocaust_and_Other_Genocides.pdf

Ghazi Hamad, of Hamas’s political bureau was explicit about their intent in an interview.

“Israel is a country that has no place on our land,” Hamad said in an interview with Lebanese TV channel LBC on October 24, which was translated and published Wednesday by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “We must remove it because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation. We are not ashamed to say this.”

In the interview, Hamad said that Israel’s existence is “illogical” and that it must be wiped off all “Palestinian lands,” a term the terror group uses to mean the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, minus the Golan Heights.

When asked whether this meant the complete annihilation of Israel, Hamas replied: “Yes, of course.”

“We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times. The Al-Aqsa Deluge [the name Hamas gave its October 7 onslaught] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth,” Hamad continued. “Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”

https://Twitter.com/MEMRIReports/status/1719662664090075199