Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[SharpKris]

So... if I got this straight.

Gazans are blocked in, cause of Hamas' doings.  (Nevermind the fact that Israel is the one who set it up, because the people of Israel are worth more then Gazans.)
Gazans do not have enough food cause of Hamas' doings.  (Israel actively prevents all smuggling, because Hamas smuggles in stuff other then food/medicine/fuel.)
Gazans are bombed by Israel cause of Hamas' doings.  (Israel can't be arsed that they are killing innocent civilians because their own innocent civilians might die if they don't, Israel people are worth more then Gazans.)

sry for the double posting

that.... i ... dafaq!?
people are people! 
"Israel can't be arsed that they are killing innocent civilians because their own innocent civilians might die if they don't, Israel people are worth more then Gazans"
FUN FACT of the day, the IDF calls each home they're about to bomb 5 minutes in advance to warn them that they should steer clear! honestly that's the dumbest military tactic for bombing there is if there ever was one 

[Draxis]

<-- right here mate *artillery unit 405 officer*

if you have specific questions then hit me up here and i'll answer you as best i can.
and yea we started the ceasefire and respected the hell out of it

Oh, I'm not saying that you're not respecting the recent ceasefire; just that the Palestinians aren't buying it.

Anyway, do you know what the status of the blockade on Gaza was before the fighting started?  I'm sure it's total right now, of course, but I know that for at least a while in March/April it was as well, did that ever get reduced between those times?

[burningpet]

Gazans are blocked in because hamas, a terrorist organization, took control of it and started smuggling in weapons and rockets. yes.

Gazans do not have enough food because hamas forced israel to force a blockade by smuggling weapons and rockets in. yes.
also, since hamas profit from the tunnels, it takes the food that IS being delivered in and hold onto it to not "flood" the market and lower prices. a tunnel is like an investment fund. you are taking a risk on it and most of them would like to see good returns which is so much harder with freely brought in food. and don't ask why they need money for. this is an irrelevant question with an obvious answer - they buy stuff of course. houses, expensive cars, off country apartments etc... gaza still has an economy and still has use for money.

look up "gaza tunnels millionaires". there are many studies on it and how few families actually rule the gazan strip through the tunnels and distribution of goods.

Gazans are bombed because hamas use them as human shields. although, and despite this nasty tactic, gazan civilian casualties are far lower in percentage than israelis civilian casualties. as i proved before by showing the starking differences in the ratio of civilian casualties percentage between israel and hamas, israel DOES NOT target civilians while hamas explicitly does.

Ask yourself, what does israel gain from all of this? it costs hundreds of millions a year, it kills our tourism industry, it kills our entire southern agriculture industry, it frustrate our regular soldiers and alienate our reserves, this last operation was a political suicide for our prime minister. really, show me the motive. show me the why.

Because i can show you the "why" of hamas. its stated openly on every banner of them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAOzy2zwyxo

Their charter. go read and educate yourself on what hamas actually is, so you wont mistakenly think them being terrorists is just israeli rethoric.
http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/charter.html?chocaid=397

Got a source for that? 

http://www.cogat.idf.il/Sip_Storage/FILES/6/3856.pdf

http://www.bhol.co.il/article.aspx?id=70855
A frustrated israeli truck driver that live in sderot, near gaza border, has blocked the supply trucks 2 days ago because he said he can't go to the grocery stores while we deliver them coca cola cans. yeah, he is crazy, but that also prove that israel allow supplies in, even now.

[smjjames]

I'm not seeing Netanyhu having commited political suicide over the most recent operations.

Though the shooting missiles at the suspected killers of those teens was an obvious kneejerk reaction and certainly didn't help anything.

[burningpet]

I'm not seeing Netanyhu having commited political suicide over the most recent operations.

He is out. he can't promise the cessation of rockets fired at israel by ordering a meaningful ground invasion like the population demands of him because of international pressure. liberman, our idiotic foreign minister, has already declared their two parties separating and without him, his party is not even the largest in israel (not by judging the last elections and not by judging through polls). theoretically, the opposition can demand "Motion of no confidence" and throw him out and there were already threats of doing so.

Edit: Explain about the kneejerk reaction? this operation is not only about those teens, btw. its also about a 2 meters wide tunnel that hamas built into israel and have trained around 70 combatants to perform a large scale civilian killing / soldier kidnapping operation that was about go live. israel knew about the tunnel and its purpose, it just didn't know exactly where it was and needed an operation to find out. (this tunnel purpose was a "secret" until today, but the army started moving forces to the gazan border around two weeks prior to the "escalation" because the israeli intelligence found out about it)

http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4544037,00.html

[Draxis]

Ask yourself, what does israel gain from all of this? it costs hundreds of millions a year, it kills our tourism industry, it kills our entire southern agriculture industry, it frustrate our regular soldiers and alienate our reserves, this last operation was a political suicide for our prime minister. really, show me the motive. show me the why.

I agree with this completely.  I'm not there, but with my limited knowledge I think Israel does it because of extremists in their government (and population to some extent, but less so) who believe that the land belongs to Israel, and don't care what happens to the people living there, and so push the countries into war and agression to try and cause it.  I agree that it isn't good for most regular Israelis, and know that it isn't for the Palestinians, which is why I'm trying to convince you that instead of containing the Palestinian population in a smaller and smaller space and punishing them for when they fight back, the Israeli government should allow them to trade and live normally.

That would also take the support away from Hamas, because as you say, Hamas is not a good group to have in charge.  They're supported because the Gazan people are desperate, and wouldn't really be representative of most of the Palestinians except that Israeli actions force them all to have a common enemy.  When the Palestinian people realised they had a choice, didn't need to die in order to protect their homes, Hamas would be forced to either become a more moderate (if still strongly Islamic) government, or be pushed out by one.  There would still be a lot of the residual hate on both sides, and Gaza will likely never be prosperous, but that would hopefully go down in time once the violence and desperation was stopped.

What was making me angry earlier was that you were saying that Hamas doing bad stuff is a good reason for the treatment of Gaza, when it's the treatment of Gaza is what makes them more than a small element, and backing it up with a bunch of bad claims instead of their real problems.  I'm sorry if I didn't say that well.  My point is that instead of just allowing the people who support for idealogical reasons to continue, and to just whip everybody else into anger over circular logic, the Israeli (and Egyptian, and Palestinian once trust is established, and American...) people need to show their governments that they know this hurts everyone, and make them at least try to fix it instead of keeping on with what isn't working for anybody but some extremists on both sides now.

I would like to be able to condemn Hamas for their actions as well, but with the huge imbalance of power towards Israel, the Israelis will just have to take a hit to their pride and step back before Hamas will see any alternative to what they are doing now.

[smjjames]

Meanwhile Hamas keeps firing missiles and the Israeli population screams to do something abiout it than turtling up?

Obviously it's in Hamas interest to escalate things and continue the cycle of violence.

[Draxis]

It is in the interest of the extremists among them, I suppose, but most of the members are joining out of desperation, because they feel like fighting is all they can do.  I think if Israel shows the Gazan people it isn't trying to kill them anymore, and is willing to let them live their lives in peace, Hamas will lose support.  That's why I think that opening the roads partially, stopping to mess with the infrastructure, and at least letting in as much food and fuel is needed, would be a good thing to do once the fighting stops.  It will be unpopular among the Israelis for sure, but unless you want to wipe out the Palestinians totally, giving them a decent state is the only thing that will work in the long run.  That's why I'm trying to convince you of this, because the more people who think the same in Israel, the more likely real peace is to happen and the less people will suffer for it.

[Sheb]

Come on, it's obviously Hamas' fault. That's why the West Bank is a free, unoccupied, sovereign state!

[smjjames]

It is in the interest of the extremists among them, I suppose, but most of the members are joining out of desperation, because they feel like fighting is all they can do.  I think if Israel shows the Gazan people it isn't trying to kill them anymore, and is willing to let them live their lives in peace, Hamas will lose support.  That's why I think that opening the roads partially, stopping to mess with the infrastructure, and at least letting in as much food and fuel is needed, would be a good thing to do once the fighting stops.  It will be unpopular among the Israelis for sure, but unless you want to wipe out the Palestinians totally, giving them a decent state is the only thing that will work in the long run.  That's why I'm trying to convince you of this, because the more people who think the same in Israel, the more likely real peace is to happen and the less people will suffer for it.

I'm not the one that needs convincing, though I do agree with you.

[Sheb]

Edit: Explain about the kneejerk reaction? this operation is not only about those teens, btw. its also about a 2 meters wide tunnel that hamas built into israel and have trained around 70 combatants to perform a large scale civilian killing / soldier kidnapping operation that was about go live. israel knew about the tunnel and its purpose, it just didn't know exactly where it was and needed an operation to find out. (this tunnel purpose was a "secret" until today, but the army started moving forces to the gazan border around two weeks prior to the "escalation" because the israeli intelligence found out about it)

http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4544037,00.html

I'm not a military strategist, but how are air strikes supposed to help locating a tunnel? And how come I cannot find an English source? I bet Nethanyahu would be yelling this at the top of his voice.

[burningpet]

Edit: Explain about the kneejerk reaction? this operation is not only about those teens, btw. its also about a 2 meters wide tunnel that hamas built into israel and have trained around 70 combatants to perform a large scale civilian killing / soldier kidnapping operation that was about go live. israel knew about the tunnel and its purpose, it just didn't know exactly where it was and needed an operation to find out. (this tunnel purpose was a "secret" until today, but the army started moving forces to the gazan border around two weeks prior to the "escalation" because the israeli intelligence found out about it)

http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4544037,00.html

I'm not a military strategist, but how are air strikes supposed to help locating a tunnel? And how come I cannot find an English source? I bet Nethanyahu would be yelling this at the top of his voice.

The first air strikes were to soften targets so special ops and engineering forces could enter the zone. eventually, it was actually an air strike that made that tunnel collapse on 7 terrorists and got it revealed.

I have no idea, but, as i said, it was revealed in israeli media only today although the military (and us reserves) knew about it beforehand. if you don't trust Ynet (although, its a leftist but fairly objective source) you can also read about it in haaretz, which is an extreme left newspaper:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/1.2377942

[Draxis]

I'm not a military strategist, but how are air strikes supposed to help locating a tunnel? And how come I cannot find an English source? I bet Nethanyahu would be yelling this at the top of his voice.

There have also been some small-scale ground attacks, I was only aware second-hand of ones on Hamas barracks and maybe some missile sites, but they could have also gone after the tunnels as well.

[Sheb]

Haaretz is extreme-left? Really? :p

Edit: from what I can understand through Google translate, the tunnel was one of the targets (just like all the tunnels, and anything that look like it belong to Hamas), not the main reasons for the current war/attack/whatever. But then, I don't understand much of it through google translate.

[burningpet]

Haaretz is extreme-left? Really? :p

Edit: from what I can understand through Google translate, the tunnel was one of the targets (just like all the tunnels, and anything that look like it belong to Hamas), not the main reasons for the current war/attack/whatever. But then, I don't understand much of it through google translate.

Yes, apparently google translate doesn't enable you to understand most of it... hebrew is not translated too well through google translate.

Quick free translation:
Title: "The army is forming additional targets list and is getting prepared for a ground invasion."
Subtitle: "The military says it thinks the operation on discovering this tunnel was the reason for the escalation"

(Ill only translate the relevant parts, with the intention of not twisting the meaning out of pulling texts out of context)
Text body:
"The army continue to prepare itself for the ground invasion in the face of the cease fire collapse.... irrelevant text... additionally, a high official in the army said they believe the operation to reveal this tunnel in the beginning of the month was the cause of escalation"

few paragraphs down (the ones in between are explaining the threats the israeli army will face)
"The army already have experience in handling tunnels. in the first day of the operation, jet fighters have unleashed 30 JDAM bombs to collapse a tunnel that was suppose to carry combatants on a large scale civilian killing operation in a nearby town"

in the photo below this paragraph, it shows bulldozers searching for a tunnel in the beginning of the month (not necessarily this tunnel.)

"The security forces believe that the attack that was planned through this tunnel was planned as a special operation that was never seen before from hamas and that the actions to reveal it from before operation "protective shield" took place is what led to the escalation in the first place. alongside engineer operations in this area, even back then the army have already shifted several additional forces including a tank company and an artillery battery to the area."

And while haaretz proclaim to be only leftist, its publisher articles are sometimes considered extreme left and the newspaper is known to be faithful to the publisher opinions.