Israel/Palestine Thread

So you think someone who is offended by seeing a Star of David medal is in fact objecting to paganism?

Figures.

(I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was older than Judaism - Christianity did the same, borrowed from pre existing religions - but I wonder how on earth you think the Jewish symbol could be taken from a religion that is a couple of thousand years younger than it? It was found on a Jewish seal from the 7th-century BC - Islam wasn't even a twinkle in Allah's eye back then.)

What a nice image full of lies. 10/10 people killed are civilians as Gaza has no military force. There, go with this.

LOL Do feel free not to reply. There's even a handy Ignore button, if that helps.

That won't stop me pointing out that nobody has managed to explain why the religious symbol of the Jews is inherently provocative but other religions are free to wear their symbols.

(Although I think Christianity has had issues on that front too, so maybe there are two religions that are considered innately provocative. Or maybe it's a question of time before the Sikh turban gets the same treatment.)

No, I've said many times before that any war crimes need to be investigated. However I do make a distinction between murdering a young woman at a concert, parading her naked through Gaza for cheering crowds of civilians to spit on, and the fact of arresting people at riots or violent incidents - even though some of them may later turn out to be innocent. Wrong - but not the same level of wrong at all.

By the way, Shani Louk's bank card was used afterwards in Gaza. What does that say about the motives of her killers? Political? Really?

(Here's an interview with her parents https://archive.ph/WgXp5 (German))

And Ireland was calling for a "proportional response" at that stage, whatever that means. Would that mean there should be just one woman killed and dragged naked through Tel Aviv?

See, I really don't know the answer to this, and I've asked many times what exactly Israel should have done. The closest I've ever got to a reply is Not do something. Usually "not commit war crimes" - which can only be answered by "D'oh". Of course they shouldn't - but what war hasn't had war crimes? That isn't an answer to what they should actually have done.

But hey maybe you can tell us how Israel could/should have responded to a murderous attack on civilians in Israel, by a military group who are the elected government of their neighbours, and who had committed to repeating similar attacks in the future?

(The IRA were never the elected government of Northern Ireland, and so even if they had launched a murderous attack on loyalists, it's not the same thing in terms of international law.)

On your last paragraph, lots of people suffered mass displacements in the 20th century, including the Jews. Pakistan was created out of such mass displacements, which killed hundreds of thousands. Similarly, there used to be UNKRA, the equivalent to UNRWA, established around the same time to settle refugees from the Korean war. It settled 2 million refugees (3 times the number of Arab refugees at the time). Are their descendants still living in "refugee camps" and still hankering to "go home"? No, they've settled down and got a life. Same for Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. And Indians for that matter. And Israelis.

Palestinians had multiple opportunities to do the same, but every time, they chose instead to try to destroy Israel. That they can't do that doesn't change the fact that they have traumatised generations of their own children trying.

And dumb wealthy westerners looking for a "cause du jour" telling them that one more push will do it doesn't help. The Palestinians are the ones who lose out. US college kids will grow up and move on. Or, if they're like Catherine Connolly and Michael D, not grow up and instead make a nice living out of their "activism".

As I recall, she was identified as having been killed when they found a piece of bone from her skull, found separately from her body, so it's quite possible that she was decapitated, either before or after death perhaps, but in any case, lots of things were said on both sides in the immediate aftermath of events that turned out to be inaccurate - the Al Ahli Hospital "attack" was a misfiring PIJ rocket for instance.

As for the organs of dead Palestinians - seriously?? Where on earth did that nonsense come from? Do you understand how organ transplants work? You can't go round picking up dead people on a battlefield and bringing them in to harvest their organs at some future time that suits.

Is there really any point in having a discussion with you? You parrot debunked Israeli propaganda while dismissing historical fact as lies.
It appears to be the Zionist way.

I mean, you just presented a medical impossibility as accepted fact, so maybe your judgment as to what's credible isn't the best? (And your sources must be well dodgy too!)

A phobia is an irrational fear, given the number of mass casualty terror attacks carried out by Islamist in Europe alone that would make it a very rational fear, it’s also far more repressive than Christianity.
The fact the word Zionist is used so often in these forums now which would get you banned a few years ago and when the mods were happy letting everyone bash Christianity then clutching their pearls over Islam today just highlights the double standards.

The only connection with "zionist depravity" is your need to believe this sort of rubbish. It's so telling.

You seem to think major organs can lie around for a few hours or even days in a war zone, and still be usable.

In reality, the only organs that don't require the person to have died in a hospital and usually kept on life support until the organs can be removed, are tissue and eye donation, as there's a 24 hour window after death for those organs, but even then the deceased would still have to have been tested for infections - and again, being killed in a battle zone would make that almost impossible.

These are just basic physiological facts. That you have convinced yourself otherwise (with zero evidence provided here of course) says that nothing you say can be taken as reliable.

Assuming you're replying to me, that's my point. What leverage, given that Israel was not in Gaza at that time? What do you think Hamas expected to achieve?

As for what to do to prevent it happening again, sure all you have to do to avoid being killed in a car accident is improve your security, yet accidents still happen. And that's assuming nobody is actively trying to provoke car crashes. The reality is that all of Israel's previous strategies failed. Telling them to do "the same but better" is not really a sufficient response.

ETA: I'm not sure what you mean by it's their own choice to live under constant threat. Other than not existing as a country at all (which TBF hasn't worked out too well for Jews traditionally) when did they turn down a genuine chance for peaceful coexistence?

Why on earth would you think I would say that was ok? If it happened, it's completely and utterly unacceptable and the person/people responsible, including senior officers if they knew about it, should be court martialed and imprisoned.

WTF would you even need to ask that??