Israel - Palestine Conflict. Mod note in OP - updated 1st August

Capt'n Midnight · 05-08-2014 12:17AM

donegal__road wrote: »

you would probably have to go back as far as Bloody Sunday if we were to try and find a comparison with what Israel are doing today.

No crew served weapons or aircraft on Bloody Sunday , no civil infrastructure damaged. No follow on attacks from the military.

There were repercussions for the actions.

You'd have to go back to 1916 and the centre of Dublin being shelled by the Helga and even then that was in the middle of WWI

woodoo · 05-08-2014 12:40AM

http://normanfinkelstein.com/2014/solution-for-israel-palestine-conflict%e2%80%8f/

Son Of A Vidic · 05-08-2014 12:43AM

Hopefully this latest ceasefire in Gaza, will allow people the time and dignity to bury their dead...

"The smell of bodies knocks people down - it is horrible to see human bodies thrown on to the streets like that," Abu Sada told Al Jazeera. "The missiles are hitting everyone…there is nowhere for us to seek shelter."
Corpses of dead Palestinians have overwhelmed morgues at Rafah's hospitals, and relatives have been left with no option but to keep their loved-ones in commercial refrigerators.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2014/08/gaza-no-place-bury-dead-201484111948791470.html

sheesh · 05-08-2014 12:49AM

RustyNut wrote: »

If he doesn't say something soon he will loose all credability, if he cant speak out when it counts sure it may as well be the regimental goat up in the park.

He can't say anything. that is the role he has signed up for.

Manic Moran · 05-08-2014 01:37AM

o1s1n wrote: »

As we all know, as per the international law of tanks, you can only comment on a photo of a tank if you have served in one.

You can comment all you want. But I have no problem with explaining to others about a culture the commentator knows nothing about. There is nothing insidious or evil about kissing your tank, it's quite within normal, civilized behaviour. And, as far as I know, there is nothing to indicate that either tank or crewman did anything insidious or evil. Ergo, commentator is being emotionally misleading and I'm calling him on it. I don't go around judging Palestinian traditions, for example, but if I do and get something wrong, I would expect to be called on it.

I'm sure when the pilots got out of the Enola Gay, they gave her a good oul pat on her fuselage for a job well done. Still doesn't detract from the fact that they just dropped a nuclear device on a city.

Yep. A legitimate act of war, well within the rules of the time. What's the issue? You have a problem with the bombing, talk to a philosopher, or a politician of the time. No reason to take it out on the crew or machine.

Manic Moran · 05-08-2014 01:50AM

Aurelia Melted Surfer wrote: »

Manic, have the IDF lost any MBT's in Gaza?.. If not do you think its because of lessons learned from Lebanon '06 or because of the urban environment -V- of the wadi's of south Lebanon?.

Not that I'm aware of. I suspect it's a combination of factors. The Israeli Armored Force took a serious look at themselves after 2006 and gave tankers a bit more emphasis on threat survival training. Hamas is far less organized at creating good ambushes, cannot mass the same firepower on a single target that Hezbullah could. And there have been technological upgrades. If you look at some of the propaganda videos from Hamas which have come out of the operation, you can see the Trophy system intercepting rockets just shy of the tank. (Of course, for the purposes of the video, you just see tank, rocket, explosion, which is good enough to convince the masses that they've hit an Israeli tank. You never see the burning Israeli tank... ) See, for example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=888LZo8o45Q or http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3b4_1406558214 , you see the blast of the trophy launch just before warhead detonation. Plus I suspect more co-operation with infantry this time around.

Incidentally, around here, 'pull' is often used for triggers, on the basis that one pulls straight back, but a squeeze will direct force at an angle. Tiggers are measured in 'weight of pull.'

Nodin wrote: »

Camp David with Egypt? Egypt has an airforce, tanks and could bog Israel down in a war of attrition. By doing a deal with Egypt they further isolate the Palestinians.

Agreed with the second half of the statement, but at the time the deal was signed, Israel had just (literally) run circles around the Egyptian military a few years earlier, after doing it again a few years before that. (Granted, the Israeli Navy got a shock in 67, but that was a sideshow). The military drubbings alone should have been sufficient to give Egypt pause, Israel didn't -need- to sign a peace treaty to keep the border quiet, I don't think.

arybvtcw0eolkf · 05-08-2014 02:30AM

Manic Moran wrote: »

Incidentally, around here, 'pull' is often used for triggers, on the basis that one pulls straight back, but a squeeze will direct force at an angle. Tiggers are measured in 'weight of pull.'

Cool, over here the theory of Marksmanship book refers to the action as a squeeze.

Thanks for the info on the MBT threat from Hamas -V- Hezbollah.

SeaBreezes · 05-08-2014 05:55AM

This isnt a war. This is genocide. For what? Natural Resources. For shame Israel, liars and deceivers and slaughterers of innocent children.

My disgust and revulsion for Israel the atrocities it has committed and its defenders is palpable.

From todays independent:
Kim Sengupta
05 August 2014 02:01 AM

The airstrike came after Israel had declared another ceasefire - a missile hitting a home in the teeming centre of Gaza City, killing five people, including two children.

Amid the carnage, the fear on the ground is that bombs will continue to rain down on a population with nowhere to escape, even if Israel withdraws its ground forces.

As the assault on Gaza continued, the British Government said it was looking into reports that a UK national had been killed in Rafah on Sunday.

The man, said to be from Rochdale, is believed to have been working for an aid agency in the southern town, which had come under fierce assault from Israeli forces for the last four days, leaving more than 140 people dead.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, speaking yesterday during a visit to Loos Cemetery in France to commemorate World War I, said: "We are  doing everything we can to get to the bottom of this. I don't want to say anything before  we have been able to do that, but this only reinforces the need for an unconditional humanitarian ceasefire. This slaughter, this killing, has got to end."

Truce

The Israeli military stressed that the seven-hour humanitarian truce did not include Rafah, where air, artillery and tank strikes began on Friday after Israel accused Hamas of kidnapping a soldier and killing two others with the use of a suicide bomber.

It was subsequently confirmed that Lt Hadar Goldin was killed in action. But there was no respite for Rafah, where a UN school was hit by a missile that killed 10, an attack the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had called a moral outrage and a criminal act.

Operations continued yesterday with the Israeli forces saying that as well as hunting "terrorists" they were destroying a complex network of tunnels which had been used to launch rocket attacks.

The survivors in one Palestinian family, the al-Bakaris, said they had no political connections and demanded to know why they had to suffer as neighbours and emergency services dug into the rubble in the hope of finding six people still missing. One of the bodies recovered was that of Ramadan, one of two brothers who owned the house.

His sister, Maha, was at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, watching over Ramadan's three-year-old son, Ali, when she heard about her brother's death.

"My family, our people, are being slaughtered like animals," she said. "This continues day after day, all the big leaders around the world say this must stop and then they do nothing. How many of the resistance have the Israelis killed? Look in the morgue and you will see the dead are children, women, old people. What has this little boy done to be hit by a bomb?"

Lying in his hospital bed, Ali stared ahead with frightened eyes. He had not spoken since being dug out of the rubble three hours earlier.

Um Jihad al-Burai, whose house next door was damaged in the blast, said: "This will go on for months. So what if they withdraw their troops, they will just keep using their planes and bombs against us.

"They will kill us when they want to. We can't go anywhere, they have kept us chained with the blockade, we cannot escape anywhere, we are trapped."

The Palestinian toll on day 28 day of the war was over 1,831 killed and 9,000 injured, most of them civilians.

All but three of the 64 Israelis killed have been from the military. An estimated 3,000 Palestinian homes have been destroyed or damaged.

Representatives of Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad held their first formal meeting in Cairo with Egyptian mediators, in a process that is supposed to lead to a long-term ceasefire.

Tony Blair, the Middle East envoy, and the US special envoy Frank Lowenstein were also present. The Israelis, however, refused to turn up for the talks after, they said, Hamas broke a 72-hour ceasefire on Friday by acts including the attack that killed Lt Goldin.

Sami Abu Zuhri, the Hamas spokesman in Gaza, accused Israel of cynically manipulating what happened with Lt Goldin.

"They tricked and deceived the world, they said the soldier had been abducted and now they say he was killed in battle. They manufactured this to break the ceasefire while blaming us and then they committed a massacre in Rafah."

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, said yesterday's truce was "to assist with the humanitarian relief" of the people of Gaza.

- See more at: http://m.independent.ie/world-news/middle-east/palestinians-fear-they-are-now-trapped-as-airstrikes-resume-30482987.html#sthash.vvTwOmVq.dpuf

Tail Docker · 05-08-2014 08:24AM

SeaBreezes wrote: »

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, said yesterday's truce was "to assist with the humanitarian relief" of the people of Gaza.

Sums it up really. Cynicism at its finest. We bomb you, then we stop - "to help you", then we start again.

Akrasia · 05-08-2014 08:29AM

woodoo wrote: »

http://normanfinkelstein.com/2014/solution-for-israel-palestine-conflict%e2%80%8f/

Unless you convert the zionists to Mormanism, they'd prefer to live in 'the promised land' regardless of how much death and suffering this causes.

Most non arab Israelis are second or third generation migrants, and 30% of the Jewish population in Israel are migrants themselves. Many Israelis came from somewhere peaceful and economically successful and choose to live somewhere that is allegedly under constant existential threat just because of their religious and political ideology. The return to 'the promised land' is one of the most fundamental aspects of zionism and it is known as Aliyah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah

Akrasia · 05-08-2014 08:34AM

Tail Docker wrote: »

Sums it up really. Cynicism at its finest. We bomb you, then we stop - "to help you", then we start again.

And and they break their own ceasefire 6 minutes after it starts with further shelling that kills more children

It's intolerably cruel to announce a 'humanitarian ceasefire', wait for people to emerge from their homes where they've been cowering because they desperately need to resupply with food and water and fuel and to seek medical supplies and treatment and to bury their dead and look for lost and missing relatives, and then they fire artilliary shells into the city killing more innocent people who are only trying their best to survive the onslaught.

bumper234 · 05-08-2014 09:26AM

Foreign Office Minister Resigns Over Gaza

http://news.sky.com/story/1313219/foreign-office-minister-resigns-over-gaza

Britain's foreign Office Minister Baroness Warsi has resigned saying she can no longer support the Government's stance on Gaza.

Baroness Warsi announced her departure on Twitter, where she has been increasingly vocal in her condemnation of Israel's actions.

speedboatchase · 05-08-2014 09:58AM

SeaBreezes wrote: »

This isnt a war. This is genocide.

No, it's still a war.

bodice ripper · 05-08-2014 10:04AM

speedboatchase wrote: »

No, it's still a war.

Ladies, ladies, can't it be both?

bumper234 · 05-08-2014 10:06AM

speedboatchase wrote: »

No, it's still a war.

When did Israel make a declaration of war? If it's a war why do Israel not follow the rules of the Geneva convention?

Akrasia · 05-08-2014 10:11AM

It's not a war, it's a shakedown. The prison guards are looking for contraband and the prisoners are resisting. In a normal prison, the prison would go into lockdown and the riot police would be called in. In the biggest prison in the world, the riot police use artilliary shells to subdue the prisoners.

All the people of Gaza are prisoners, even the children, and they are being treated collectively, as though they are all guilty of crimes against Israel and therefore they have lost all of their human rights.

VinLieger · 05-08-2014 12:21PM

This article just speaks volumes to the broken thinking and logic that the zionists have and yet they will still reference the holocaust as a reason for proceeding with this current genocide and see nothing wrong with the statements made in the article below

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/08/04/israeli-deputy-speaker-proposes-solution-for-palestinians-concentration-camps-and-extermination/

Drakares · 05-08-2014 12:32PM

Israel are one of the only countries that as a nation of people, make me absolutely sick. They, more than anyone else know what it's like to be repressed and murdered... They are more or less the same as Nazi Germany only Nazi Germany didn't have the shadow of America funding them billions in weapons and defense. Disgusting... I have also lost any shred of respect for Obama and the states.

BeerWolf · 05-08-2014 12:40PM

VinLieger wrote: »

This article just speaks volumes to the broken thinking and logic that the zionists have and yet they will still reference the holocaust as a reason for proceeding with this current genocide and see nothing wrong with the statements made in the article below

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/08/04/israeli-deputy-speaker-proposes-solution-for-palestinians-concentration-camps-and-extermination/

Of course they do - you make any criticism against them and they'll label you anti-Semitic.

They've always played their holocaust card for whatever reason, because they believe the world owes them a debt.

Tuisceanch · 05-08-2014 12:42PM

As Israel's war in Gaza claims more than 1600 lives, a recent survey shows that more than 86% of Israelis oppose a ceasefire. All attempts to reach one collapsed. As the operation expands so too does the movement in Israel against it. Anti-war demonstrations have grown from week to week, but so has opposition to them. Groups of nationalists have been demonstrating in support of the war and attacking anyone who opposes it. The Real News' Lia Tarachansky asks who are these groups and what is their political message?

http://tinyurl.com/krhauld

Son Of A Vidic · 05-08-2014 12:47PM

bumper234 wrote: »

why do Israel not follow the rules of the Geneva convention?

They don't, they didn't and they never have. As always, they push the envelope that little bit further every time. And since this time, they've now achieved a higher 'score' in terms of civilian deaths and injuries than their previous 'war'. I suspect their blood lust has been sufficiently sated for now.

Tuisceanch · 05-08-2014 12:52PM

Ebay is selling a letter written by Albert Einstein at the time of the Deir Yassin massacre in April 1948 to an American Zionist, denouncing the Zionist militias’ terrorist activities. It’s interesting that Einstein’s word, catastrophe, is also the Palestinians’ word in Arabic, the Nakba. The letter’s text:

April 10,1948
Mr. Shepard Rifkin
Exec.Director
American Friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel
149 Second Ave.
New York 3,N.Y.
Dear Sir:
When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it the Terrorist organizations build up from our own ranks.
I am not willing to see anybody associated with those misled and criminal people.
Sincerely yours, (Signed, ‘A. Einstein’)
Albert Einstein.

It sold for 16,000 dollars so it's too late to bid!

Son Of A Vidic · 05-08-2014 01:02PM

Tuisceanch wrote: »

As Israel's war in Gaza claims more than 1600 lives

Tragically, it has already surpassed that number......

The Palestinian death toll in the Israeli operation has passed 1,800. More than 9,000 have been wounded, the Gaza health ministry said. Rights groups have estimated that more than 10,000 houses have been destroyed in the Israeli offensive.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.608723

Dan_Solo · 05-08-2014 01:07PM

Drakares wrote: »

Israel are one of the only countries that as a nation of people, make me absolutely sick. They, more than anyone else know what it's like to be repressed and murdered... They are more or less the same as Nazi Germany only Nazi Germany didn't have the shadow of America funding them billions in weapons and defense. Disgusting... I have also lost any shred of respect for Obama and the states.

Is there another officially racist state in the world besides Israel?

Tuisceanch · 05-08-2014 01:18PM

Corvus Maximus wrote: »

Tragically, it has already surpassed that number......

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.608723

The video shows footage from a demonstration last week and obviously the figures have mounted since that date.The IDF are busy bees as
"idle hands are the devils playthings"

Watching the video makes one realize how courageous the anti-war demonstrators in Israel are.

My name is URL · 05-08-2014 02:00PM

Israel-Gaza conflict: Right-wing Israeli politician calls for Gazans to be ’concentrated in camps’ – and then all resistance ‘exterminated’

A senior Israeli politician has called for the “conquest of the entire Gaza Strip” and the deportation of Palestinians to make way for Jewish settlers.

Moshe Feiglin, the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset and a member of the governing Likud party, outlined his plans in an open letter to Benjamin Netanyahu published on Facebook.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/israelgaza-conflict-rightwing-israeli-politician-calls-for-gazans-to-be-concentrated-in-camps--and-then-all-resistance-exterminated-9649103.html

Israeli General: No Civilians in Gaza

Retired Israeli Major General Giora Eiland wrote in an op-ed that there is no such thing as an innocent civilian in Gaza. Late Monday, the former head of the National Security Council published an article on Ynet News arguing that the citizens of Gaza were as responsible for the recent violence as Hamas. He even made a comparison between Gaza under Hamas and Nazi Germany.

"[T]hey are to blame for this situation just like Germany's residents were to blame for electing Hitler as their leader and paid a heavy price for that, and rightfully so," Eiland wrote.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2014/08/04/israeli-general-no-civilians-in-gaza.html

I'd say Israel is more comparable to Nazi Germany :rolleyes:

RustyNut · 05-08-2014 02:01PM

Dan_Solo wrote: »

Is there another officially racist state in the world besides Israel?

Zimbabwe?

mdolly123 · 05-08-2014 02:03PM

Again another ceasefire put in place with word that Israel has finished its mission to destroy tunnels .... not gonna be fooled this time.

donegal__road · 05-08-2014 02:03PM

Dan_Solo wrote: »

Is there another officially racist state in the world besides Israel?

Northern Ireland.. though not officially

donegal__road · 05-08-2014 02:06PM

Israeli Rabbi: It’s okay to kill innocent civilians and destroy Gaza..

Israel - Palestine Conflict. **Mod note in OP - updated 1st August**

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Israel - Palestine Conflict. Mod note in OP - updated 1st August