Does Israel want to wipe out the Palestinians?

Reports that Palestinans "had to go" to the protests, "encouraged" by local imams and transported in buses paid for by Hamas.

“We all have to go — there is no excuse,” he said. “I tried to tell them not to go, but the mosques were asking them to go.”

“The amount of casualties has done us a tremendous disservice, unfortunately, and it has been very difficult to tell our story,” the Israeli army’s spokesman, Lt Col Jonathan Conricus, was taped telling a Jewish-American group, according to Israeli news outlets Ha’aretz and Ynet News. “The ‘winning picture’ overwhelmingly, by a knockout, unfortunately, has been the graphics from the Palestinian side.” The army said the leaked calls were quoted out of context.

A PR and political "victory" for Hamas, but at what cost?

14 year old boys "encouraged" by their own leaders to become martyrs, 8 month old baby Leyla that died of reported tear-gas inhalation. At least 58 dead and over 1,000 wounded. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh spent the morning rousing the protesters, then flew to Cairo - where he would be safe.

... if Hamas is able to cultivate the blood into some kind of improvement of daily life in Gaza, then it can call this a success.”

Cultivating the blood of your own civilians. For PR! :eek:

Israel will guard its border against enemies, everyone knows this. Is forcing your own civilians into enemy gunfire not a War Crime?

ThinkProgress wrote: »

Shhhh..... Shush....

Didn't you know, (...........) here!

Earlier you claimed that it was a complex situation. You have yet to explain what you meant.

BalcombeSt4 wrote: »

Look how antisemitic these "Christian" Zionists are.

They want Israel to control the whole territory because they believe it will kick of Armageddon and when Jesus returns he'll wipe 2/3's of the Jews out and the 1/3 that is spared will covert to Christianity and be "saved".

These people are the other side of the Nazi coin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo77sTGpngQ

That's similar death cult type ideology like Isis believed in.

political analyst wrote: »

Haven't you heard of 'child soldiers'? If a young lad points an automatic rifle at you, you have to fire back - it's you or him! Furthermore, Israelis have killed Palestinian civilians by mistake in attacks on Hamas. That's a consequence of what Clausewitz called "the fog of war".

These kids were not armed and posed no threat to anybody but they were deliberately killed by israeli forces, why?

Running for their lives: Haunting images capture tragic last moments of four Palestinian boys - seconds before an Israeli shell wiped them out on Gaza beach
Children from same fishing family killed as they tried to flee Israeli gunboat attack off Gaza’s Mediterranean coast
Their uncle described the killings as 'a cold blooded massacre' and slammed Israel for failing to identify the target

This little girl was unarmed and posing no threat to anybody yet she was killed by an idf officer, why?

An Israeli army officer who fired the entire magazine of his automatic rifle into a 13-year-old Palestinian girl and then said he would have done the same even if she had been three years old was acquitted on all charges by a military court yesterday.

Why do israeli soldiers use Palestinian children as human shields?

tayto lover wrote: »

Victim blaming in full swing here still.

The Palestinians are definitely victims. I agree 100% and I seriously pity them.
Sacrificed by their own leaders just to score a few more points in a never ending propaganda war.

Grayson wrote: »

Nice point scoring. Also welcome. I always find it amazing how many people decide to sign up for these threads.

What you just engaged in is called whatabouttery. It's trying to excuse one heinous act by pointing out one that someone else committed. It's trying to excuse the acts of violence, targeted against civilians, committed by the israeli military. You can try and say that in a fight innocent people get killed but there's a difference between unavoidable deaths and targeting civilians. What happened in the last week is that Israeli soldiers targeted civilians. Now you'll probably reply saying that Hamas put them there. Let's assume they did. That doesn't make civilians a threat or mean that they can just be shot. And remember the deaths included disabled people and children.

You've also tried to distract by saying what they don't do. I don't care what they don't do. I care about what they actually do.

Thanks for the welcome. I've been lurking about for a long time around boards, and was always tempted to participate in the discussions but could never actually force my lazy ass to sit and write. I guess it took a thread like this to make me finally do it...

As for what I wrote, didn't intend to practice in whataboutery or excuse any act or whatever.
Whoever uses human shields is scum, I don't care if he's Israeli, Palestinian or Swiss.
The Israelis aren't saints and their sins are many, but in this case, sorry - Hamas is completely to blame for the deaths in this round of violence.
I don't think that Israeli snipers targeted the man in the wheelchair or children on purpose.
I'm not naive or immature and inexperienced enough to believe that every bullet always finds its exact target, and that there is never collateral damage and innocents do not ever ever ever ever ever get hurt.

The only difference here between you and me is that you believe the Israelis kill women & children and people in wheel chairs on purpose, and I believe that there was no purpose, no intent - they were killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and someone missed. The only ones to blame for that are Hamas for sending babies and children and ffs disabled people to violent riots, inciting them to attack the Israeli fence. Seriously, what kind of a sick cold hearted soul can send children and babies to a riot?

Seth Yellow Cobra wrote: »

After today's massacre, over 55 dead so far. Absolutely no regard for Palestinians basic human rights. What is the end game? Tomorrow marks the 70th anniversary of the Nakba and things are only getting worse. Events in the occupied territories are worse than anything endured in apartheid south Africa. They need support from the ground up from all people as the political will is not there.

The Palestinians need to stop burning tires on Israel`s border. They need to start vegetable plots, they need to clean up their rubbish and take an active interest in nature and in their environment.

Odhinn wrote: »

Despite them having another guy in wheelchair and inumerable innocents with single shots to the head.

Don't know about the "innumerable innocents shots to the head" thing.
According to Hamas 50 of the 60+ killed were Hamas members, so their innocence is questionable to say the least, and I've seen enough videos showing units of Hamas operatives trying to breach the Israeli security fence to actually believe Hamas for once.
Also, runaway bullets can sometimes hit heads too, they're not really picky.

I'll tell you this - The Israelis are not stupid. They know very well from bitter experience that every Palestinian civilian casualty causes Israel a lot of grief. The regular UN bull****, internal arguments within Israeli society itself, relationships with other countries, you name it - innocent deaths bring Israel only trouble, and the only ones benefiting are Hamas.
So, assuming we are not as extreme as to think the Israelis/IDF are blood crazed killers intent on drinking Palestinian children's blood for breakfast, why the hell would the Israelis kill innocents on purpose? what political/military/strategic/tactic/whatever advantage or gain does it give?
Simple. It doesn't and the IDF are doing all they can to avoid innocent deaths, but not at the price of risking Israeli life.
The only ones who are benefiting from innocent Palestinian deaths are Hamas.

zapitastas wrote: »

Look at some of the footage. The IDF were shooting live rounds indiscriminately into the crowd of unarmed protesters. Is plain as day and you can say black is white as many times as you want but people are not stupid enough to believe it

I looked at the footage very closely. I'm also aware of the fire power the Israelis had available to them in these clashes, and I actually think that the numbers (60+ killed, out of which over 50 are Hamas operatives) show how restrained the Israelis actually were, and how extremely accurate their fire was.
over 83%(!) of the Palestinians killed were Hamas operatives trying to actively attack the Israeli fence. Who really believes here, that indiscriminately firing into protesters can result in such statistics? Did the bullets know on their own how to identify the Hamas operatives standing among the innocents? Did the bullets guide themselves?

sarcasticus magnificus wrote: »

I looked at the footage very closely. I'm also aware of the fire power the Israelis had available to them in these clashes, and I actually think that the numbers (60+ killed, out of which over 50 are Hamas operatives) show how restrained the Israelis actually were, and how extremely accurate their fire was.
over 83%(!) of the Palestinians killed were Hamas operatives trying to actively attack the Israeli fence. Who really believes here, that indiscriminately firing into protesters can result in such statistics? Did the bullets know on their own how to identify the Hamas operatives standing among the innocents? Did the bullets guide themselves?

O I've a healthy disbelief about the whole thing allright.

Odhinn wrote: »

You might read some of the links posted by me and others, then.

I did, I read the whole thread including the links.
The excuse given that Hamas said civilians were Hamas members so they could compensate their families financially doesn't really work any way you look at it. Even if you ignore the fact that they can just compensate anyone they want really (they are the government after all), there are only two options here:
1. Hamas is telling the truth, which is what I believe.
2. Hamas is lying, so basically no one really knows how many civilians and how many Hamas operatives were really killed, in which case you can't really blame Israel for killing scores of civilians. You just don't have the data.

Odhinn wrote: »

Untrue. Israel faces no sanctions whatsoever.

In these situations, they target young men of arms bearing age and anyone who appears to be an authority figure.

Hasn't the UN security council already decided on an investigation into the events in Gaza?
Relationships with countries such as Turkey get hurt.
Tourism to Israel gets hurt, financial investments get hurt, Israel's reputation gets hurt.
Ireland & Iceland are considering not participating in the Eurovision!!! I would think that's enough of a sanction...

So many downsides and not a single benefit whatsoever.
Also, if the IDF really targeted people according to your criteria, there would have been a lot more dead among the 40,000 there, and Hamas would have gladly announced the number of dead civilians to gain propaganda points.
Lets not forget - the one single purpose behind the whole mess was to bring back the world's attention to the Palestinians (apparently the syrians had enough of it even though a lot more Syrians probably died in these past couple of weeks than Palestinians).

If you ask me, the Palestinians are truly screwed as long as Hamas is in control, and the world should focus its energy and efforts into helping the Palestinians get rid of groups like Hamas & Islamic Jihad for good. Until that happens - I'm afraid there is not much hope in the future for Gaza.

Zebra3 wrote: »

There is no hope for Gaza when it can’t breathe regardless of who runs the place.

It’s a ghetto that the Nazis would be proud to have a noose around.

That's just not true.
Contrary to popular belief, Gaza is not the most densely populated area in the world, not even in the first 3.
More densely populated places include Hong Kong, Singapore & Macau, for example.
None of these places suffer like the Palestinians, and there is only one thing stopping the Palestinians from turning Gaza into the Singapore of the middle east with all the Billions in aid money they receive all the time - their Hamas leaders and their Jihadistic approach towards Israel.

Here is a video of Gaza released by Hamas a couple of years ago. I've seen worse places in Ireland (D1, for example) and Gaza could really become a gem if they weren't so busy directing all their foreign aid towards fighting Israel instead of towards improving people's life in Gaza.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ij8h0F6xcM

It's a terrible shame really. our shame (by "our" I mean, the civilised western world).
We see a whole nation of people controlled by a vile murderous terrorist organization, and instead of helping the Palestinians by getting rid of this terrorist organization there are people, political parties, politicians and countries out there who actually support them blindly.
Anyone who supports Hamas helps prolonging Palestinian suffering. It's as simple as that.

BoJack Horseman wrote: »

enemy of my enemy etc

The Irish don't mind jihad so long as it's against the Israelis.

Yeah, 'cos if they're all dead they can't suffer can they. Thanks for that, how caring.