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[Yanlin]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Can you please stop equating Hamas' actions with Israel's? There's no similarity here. First of all, Hamas is a terrorist group and Israel is (supposed to be) a respectable and legitimate state. The power differential is vast - Hamas is a bunch of ragtag militants; Israel could obliterate all of the Palestinian population with airstrikes if they wanted to. Hamas is extremist; Israel may be run by extremists but its existence as a democracy gives it a duty to play by the same rules of war that all other civilized people play by. If you say, "well, Hamas blows up busses" and use that as a justification for Israel to bomb civilian areas indiscriminately, you're effectively making Israel no better than the terrorists. A massive military incursion resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths and countless more injuries, and the levelling of a whole area, is not a proportionate or civilized response to rocket attacks. If Israel wants to maintain any good name at all, it has to shape up its act...otherwise it becomes just another terrorist group.

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Well you just pretty much invalidated any defense I can muster to this argument. Just cause Hamas is what it is does not excuse it from what they've done. Besides, what would you have Israel do? Sit around and do nothing? There's a damn reason they went in with ground forces. The air bombings were designed to cripple their infrastructure. Like in any war. The ground forces were dispatched to try and root out Hamas. Since obviously bombing their buildings would never be enough.

[Virex]

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Well you just pretty much invalidated any defense I can muster to this argument. Just cause Hamas is what it is does not excuse it from what they've done. Besides, what would you have Israel do? Sit around and do nothing? There's a damn reason they went in with ground forces. The air bombings were designed to cripple their infrastructure. Like in any war. The ground forces were dispatched to try and root out Hamas. Since obviously bombing their buildings would never be enough.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actualy, I belive that would be a valid option. Terrorists are only capable of sustaining their assaults if their actions actualy provoke a reaction. The fact that the Palestinian missile attacks provoke reactions gives them a sense of power and the idea that they're able to stand up to their opressor. If Israel, and preferably the whole world, would completely ignore the missles and other provocations, then that could break the power and popularity Hamas has.

[Yanlin]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Well you just pretty much invalidated any defense I can muster to this argument. Just cause Hamas is what it is does not excuse it from what they've done. Besides, what would you have Israel do? Sit around and do nothing? There's a damn reason they went in with ground forces. The air bombings were designed to cripple their infrastructure. Like in any war. The ground forces were dispatched to try and root out Hamas. Since obviously bombing their buildings would never be enough.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Actualy, I belive that would be a valid option. Terrorists are only capable of sustaining their assaults if their actions actualy provoke a reaction. The fact that the Palestinian missile attacks provoke reactions gives them a sense of power and the idea that they're able to stand up to their opressor. If Israel, and preferably the whole world, would completely ignore the missles and other provocations, then that could break the power and popularity Hamas has.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

They are not some forum trolls posting mean comments on our forums. They are murdering innocent civilians and terrorizing Israel. Besides, I thought Israel did ignore them for a pretty long while.

[Jude]

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Well you just pretty much invalidated any defense I can muster to this argument. Just cause Hamas is what it is does not excuse it from what they've done. Besides, what would you have Israel do? Sit around and do nothing? There's a damn reason they went in with ground forces. The air bombings were designed to cripple their infrastructure. Like in any war. The ground forces were dispatched to try and root out Hamas. Since obviously bombing their buildings would never be enough.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dude! This has to be the 40th time I've said this. I NEVER EXCUSED WHAT HAMAS DOES.

What I'd have Israel do...stop the occupation, pull out the settlers, give back the land beyond the 1967 line, take down the wall, and if they have to have a wall, have it FOLLOW the 67 line, not intrude into Palestinian land.

If Israel does this, they will have the moral high ground. Otherwise, it's far too easy to make the case that the terrorists have a just cause.

I'd also have the Israeli authorities take a sociology class about terrorism. That would probably make them realize the (not all that elusive) fact that you can't stamp out terrorism by military means, unless you literally slaughter the entire population that produces them. Not once in all of history has terrorism ever been stopped by military means; I don't know why the IDF thinks they'll be the first.

Also, if Israeli leaders start taking the peace process seriously (all of the things I listed in the first paragraph would go a LONG way toward that) then maybe it would actually start to happen. But for them to be saying they're trying to bring about peace while maintaining the settlements and stealing land with the "security" wall is just childish.

Then again, I guess some of the more rightist leaders don't even maintain a charade of trying to bring about peace.

Actualy, I belive that would be a valid option. Terrorists are only capable of sustaining their assaults if their actions actualy provoke a reaction. The fact that the Palestinian missile attacks provoke reactions gives them a sense of power and the idea that they're able to stand up to their opressor. If Israel, and preferably the whole world, would completely ignore the missles and other provocations, then that could break the power and popularity Hamas has.

I actually don't think ignoring the attacks would really help - also it's impossible.

But if Israeli leaders started REALLY recognizing the legitimacy of the cause that creates Hamas terrorists, and address that cause, they would be able to stop the terrorists, by removing the grievance. Terrorists appear when there are serious grievances and there is no way to address those through less extreme channels. The fact that Israel has shut off so many options toward Palestinian sovereignty is the main factor in the continuing of terrorism. If Palestinians had decent lives and a place to live and call their own, the wackos who insist on seeing Israel destroyed would quickly shrink to an insignificant minority while everyone else went on with their lives. This pattern has been seen again and again throughout history...there's no reason why it shouldn't work here as well.

[LegoLord]

I kinda wanted to add wrong before beliefs.

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It's good you didn't...because, squishy issues of right and wrong aside, my beliefs are informed by a lot more of the facts than yours probably are.

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 . . . that's a very ignorant thing to say.

Just ignore Jude guys; people who say stuff like that (and don't even provide citation for their arguments) are generally just trolling.

[Toady One]

Yanlin, Jude.  If this continues, the continuing offender(s) will be muted for a period of days.

I don't know why the both of you think crapping up a thread with a page of spoilers was a good idea.  It just makes it a pain in the ass for me to click through everything to tell if you are still treating each other like dirt.  So I'm not going to bother.  I don't care whether you've been acting like angels.  This is stupid.

In the future, you can spit venom at each other via PMs if you like, and use the ignore list if you get tired of somebody's PMs.  The next person to post a spoiler in this thread that isn't actually a spoiler of some kind gets muted (assuming it isn't some innocent that's bumbled into your crappy precedent).  Continuing discussion is fine.  Disagreements are fine.  It's the personal attacks and posts that are just bitching at other forum members that need to stop.

[Jude]

We figured the spoilers would keep our discussion separate from whatever else was going on. We've been keeping it quite civil in there though, if you want to take my word for it.

Anyway I'm not going to post in here for a little bit because I just saw a talk by some people who coordinate a relief organization that went to Gaza after the war and the stuff I heard from them convinced me that the Israeli government is pure evil. If I post anymore it will become flaming.

. . . that's a very ignorant thing to say.

Not at all; and I didn't mean it in an inflammatory way. I've spent time in the West Bank, seen the occupation first hand, and I followed the Gaza war while it was going on as well as talking to people who've been there more recently. I think this lends a little credence to what I'm saying, particularly given the American media's excruciatingly one-sided and shallow portrayal of what's going on over there.

Of course by that standard me and Yanlin are the only ones that really know what the heck we're talking about. But anyway, if you want to dismiss all that as trolling, that's your prerogative I guess.

[Yanlin]

Today is right. This needs its own thread.

Back on topic then?

[chaoticag]

I'm pretty sure the topic ended when I said that we should use administration in stead of (insert country name here).
After that, the topic got derailed, fell off a cliff, hit rock bottom then asked for a pickax.

[Yanlin]

I seriously don't want to keep arguing with Jude in this thread. I have a few choice words about what he just said in his previous post, but Today told us to can it. So unless he's willing to start his own thread about this, I'll try to rerail this thread.

Recently I was having a conversation with somebody. He claimed the Iranian government is awesome. Developing their own nukes and all.

I quickly disagreed and explained the dangers involved.

He dismissed me as a racist and Islamophobic.

Looks like even talking about the government of administration doesn't work with some people.

[chaoticag]

He dismissed me as a racist and Islamophobic.

Even muslims are against this, and a fear of nuklear weaponry should be normal at this point of history, especially when the person who is in charge of it claims that the world will be a better place when people no longer gather at churches and sinagaugs(sp?).

However, Iranians themselves aren't bad, they just happen to have a crappy milataristic dictator ruling over them. Just pick up persepolis and read/watch it.

[Yanlin]

Aye. But some people are just misinformed.

Yanlin says: "The Iranians are developing nuclear weapons of mass destruction that could herald world war III."

Conservative McStupid says: "Nuclear power is clean."

Damn playing LCS is hard.

[Strife26]

Nuclear power IS clean though.

[Yanlin]

No it's not.

[Bromor Neckbeard]

Sure it is.  How isn't it?