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[burningpet]

The "terror tunnels" can be dealt with from the Israeli side of the border though, without a ground invasion of Gaza.

No, they can't.

And you are entirely missing the point. the point is that hamas is using aid materials and money to build offensive tunnels that goes into israel's territory. why should hamas dig offensive tunnels into israel and still be considered as "keeping to the terms of the truce"? how violating the border does not count as an offensive action? how spending tons of palestine Aid materials and money in order to specifically hurt israel is considered a justified action that should not lead to actions against it?

How can israel deal with offensive tunnels going into its territory? How could israel know when the tunnel has crossed the border? And why do you expect israel to wait for hamas to finish its tunnel and burst out to found out?

Let me sum it up real quickly:

Israel cannot know where the tunnels are and cannot destroy the tunnels even if it found their exit, without crossing the border into gaza and finding the tunnel's entrance.

This. The tunnels are useless until they cross the border, at which point it's in Israeli turf for them to just dismantle or deal with already...

Yep. their rockets are also useless until they land on civilians houses. 

Sure. Gaza AND Israel being de-militarized and inspected by international forces would be a fine solution by me.

Since israel deals with enemies on multiple borders and with population that is prone to radical islam and disorder as seen in syria, iraq, egypt, lebanon, palestine and jordan, i can't see how you can or even should expect israel to demilitarize itself.

If we make peace with hamas and give up our weapons, what will stop Hizbulla in the northern borders form invading? what will stop al qaeda from the egyptian border? what will stop ISIS from the jordanian border? hell, what will stop hamas from amassing weapons and invading? and don't tell me the UN. its the UN that allows hizbulla to enrich itself in the lebanon border and sometimes even shelter it in its facilities.

And it's not like the argument that Hamas couldn't be allowed to have its tunnel hold water: Hezbollah is no fan of Israel and has spent most of the last decades amassing a huge stockpile of weapons, and Israel is living just fine with it.

Israel have bombed weapon convoys to hezbollah multiple times now and since Hezbollah is busy fighting ISIS and Al-qaeda, israel prefer to just let them kill each other. regardless, this argument is as weak as it gets.

[smjjames]

The solution to the tunnels is to fill them with magma

Okay nonsensical, but dorfy.

[LordSlowpoke]

i dunno, south korea destroys tunnels without invading the north pretty regularly

go petition the government to get korean tunnel destroying research

[burningpet]

I am not familiar with the fine details of this subject but i assume the situation is different.

Fake Edit: From an extremely shallow research, are we speaking about 4 known, far bigger, tunnels that were discovered after they crossed the border and are actually not destroyed yet? yeah, the situation is vastly different and is far from being comparable.

IDF just found an offensive tunnel that led to a dining room in a kibbutz near the border of gaza.

In another incident, IDF just killed 15 hamas terrorists that emerged from a tunnel near another kibbutz.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

What does an Israeli soldier do?

Well now, they can actually do something revolutionary known as 'Raiding the house' instead of blowing it up.

Israel has no large enough population to waste own soldiers like that


Imagine, 1945 year, somewhere in Germany, someone place an MG nest in a house that has several civilians inside (Unlike HAMAS nazies not used own people as meatshields... At least I never heard about that) what should American\British\Soviet Commander do? Should he bring a tank and blow that house from a safe distance or send infantry to assault them?

[burningpet]

Interesting article outlining how the tunnels were and still are the root of this operation and with some basic outlines to its background:

http://online.wsj.com/articles/michael-mukasey-tunnels-matter-more-than-rockets-to-hamas-1405894408

Sadly, the official biggest arab US ally Qatar is still not mentioned yet. a country that spends billions on financing terror organizations throughout the world in general and hamas specifically. (it is rumored that hamas received more than 1BN USD since they strengthened their ties not too long ago.)

[10ebbor10]

In other news: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28397207

Iran has turned all of its enriched uranium closest to the level needed to make nuclear arms into more harmless forms, the UN nuclear agency says.

If they're true to their word, then that's progress.

This is checked by the IAEA. Not that the material was dangerous anyway, it's just 20 % enriched uranium fluoride.

If iran wants a nuclear warhead, they ain't going to use their declared stocks and facilities.

[Sheb]

Since the Israeli pull-out from Gaza in 2005, 54 Israeli (and about 2750 Palestinians) died due to Gaza-related violence. Of those 54, the majority (33, and climbing) died during the three major clashes with Hamas:Operation Cast Lead, Pillar of Defense and Protective Edge. I couldn't find numbers on the remaining 21, so I don't know if they were killed during periods of "peace" or during lesser clashes.

Hamas is certainly a terrorist group, but just because it's a terrorist group doesn't mean it's 100% irrational. Even them don't like being bombed back to the stone age. So the result is pretty clear: if what you care about is protecting Israeli, you shouldn't escalate the fight with Hamas.

Also interesting, at least 30 of those 54 were soldiers. So Hamas actually killed less civilians than the IDF as a proportion (even though this is explained at least in part by the fact that their rockets are craps and the number of killed soldiers is ratcheted up by the 18 that died in the recent assault. I didn't count the number of FF deaths).

[Loud Whispers]

The real world is full of surprises. They actually were the first real Iranian's I've met. Strangely enough they remind me of Greeks (probably offending a few Greeks or Iraninan's here).

I know tons of Muslims, they get along with the Jews just fine too [often they can banter around just fine like asking which part of Palestine were you from?]. Most of them don't drink alcohol, one of them drinks too much red bull, they're all pretty socially conservative [one of them thinks you're 'less of a don' if you're gay]. These aren't the ones people are panicking about. Honestly, muslim immigrants tend to not be the issue, as barring those who arrive extremists it's the next generations who are raising the radicalized and extremist muslims, the ones who go abroad to fight for Isis or attack non-Muslims in the streets, there's hundreds in/from Britain already and France never stops going on about them, in Britain we have to deport radical clerics just about every other year. There is also a thing about muslim dog fighting rings in Britain, but no one really cares since the areas they exist in have bigger problems than dog fighting. Also yeah, that would offend both Greeks and Iranians.

Also, pretty sure radical Islam is on the rise because holy shit the Middle East is kind of a balls-fucked place, eh?

Except when you get radical muslims born and raised in Western countries like Europe, Canada and America. Hell, just look at Muslim countries which aren't shit like Azerbaijan, Malaysia and Turkey. Turkey was even the one colonizing other countries, not the other way around and still it has radical muslims rising. It's on the rise just about everywhere really. One would suspect that its momentum is carrying itself forwards and has become self-sustaining. Internationally this rise I believe is attributed to the internet. Now you don't need radical clerics to make it past border controls, now you only need a muslim community anywhere in the world and internet access. Throw in some impressionable kids and you've now got a growing radical community that can stay connected no matter where they are. Once they start getting flights to start training, you've got an even bigger problem with a new generation invested into radicalism.

[Dutchling]

Yay Islam

[Sheb]

Although it's interesting to note that the authorized protests didn't degenerate. Of course, one you ban it, only people willing to break the law will turn up, without the more moderates to calm them down. But still it sucks. I wouldn't like to be a Jew in France right now.

[burningpet]

Hamas is certainly a terrorist group, but just because it's a terrorist group doesn't mean it's 100% irrational. Even them don't like being bombed back to the stone age. So the result is pretty clear: if what you care about is protecting Israeli, you shouldn't escalate the fight with Hamas.

Escalating the fight with hamas was the only way to protect israel against the imminent future offensive attacks through those tunnels. and since no one in his right mind thinks offensive tunnels is a defensive measure, those tunnels had to be dealt with. and evidently, an offensive through one of these tunnels was deemed to take place around the time of the escalation, simply because hamas extremely needed to leverage themselves in the arab world.

israel has started a preemptive war, not a preventive war.

If they were 100% irrational, that would have been far easier for israel. The problem is that they know damn well how to play themselves as the innocent peaceful caretakers of palestines while simultaneously stealing their Aid and spiking the goods prices so they could fund an extremely expensive and offensive tunneling toward israel, peacefully safe guarded by truces and cease fires agreements. if they didn't want to get bombed back to the stone age, they could simply use the billions given to them in order to stabalize gaza instead of wasting them on rockets and tunnels and i am pretty sure instead of bombing them, israel would have built them a water Desalination facility, whether funded by Qatar or Saudi Arabia or the West, it doesn't matter.

And as i said, the recent clashes show different figures simply because israel became pretty good at keeping its civilian safe from the palestines by physically blocking palestines from reaching them. that doesn't change one bit the equation of intention, since attempted murders are considered as equal or as almost as equal as murders in most modern countries and if 10 men are trying to kill you and you manage to kill them all by self defending yourself, you will not be deemed guilty or immoral in court simply because you had to kill more people than they (theoretically) intended to (they could have killed you and move on to your neighbour).

in a nutshell, the fact israel finally manage to actually protect its civilians, doesn't mean it shouldn't be justified in continuing to do so.

[palsch]

A look at the Israeli politics behind the ground invasion. A fairly first-order pass of the topic, but seems like a starting point for those with little background on recent events.

[Loud Whispers]

israel has started a preemptive war, not a preventive war.

I don't want to get semantic but aren't they both the same thing? Strike an enemy before they've gathered their strengths and wage war on you?

And as i said, the recent clashes show different figures simply because israel became pretty good at keeping its civilian safe from the palestines by physically blocking palestines from reaching them.

I do agree with this point here, casualties aren't a showing of intent, just competency. Israel's offensive and defensive capabilities are both better and Hamas is waging asymmetric warfare, so there's asymmetric casualties. I don't think anyone here is opposed to the idea of Israel not sitting around waiting for themselves to be attacked, but rather the ethics of the attack itself [such as indiscriminate fire] and the settlements that invariably appear after an invasion and the treatment of the natives.

that doesn't change one bit the equation of intention, since attempted murders are considered as equal or as almost as equal as murders in most modern countries and if 10 men are trying to kill you and you manage to kill them all by self defending yourself, you will not be deemed guilty or immoral in court simply because you had to kill more people than they (theoretically) intended to (they could have killed you and move on to your neighbour).

Well, a lot of European countries would charge you with a lot of things if you do unless it happened under specific circumstances. Self defence laws are weird here, so the analogy breaks up a bit.

[Sheb]

Indeed, but it means that Israel can more easily afford to prevent an escalation that will end up in more death for both side.

To have an analogy, I used to go out with a girl that could be abusive at times, but was physically much smaller and weaker that I was. Now, when she was abusive, I would consciously hold back, because I knew very well that if I answered in kind I would really hurt her while I could more or less shrug off her attempt at violence.

Regarding the tunnel, of course they are offensive, just as a rocket or an Israeli tank. It doesn't mean Hamas was planning to use them other than in retaliation in case of Israeli attack. No matter how you twist it, Israeli actions don't square with a preemptive war. The preemptive war theory doesn't explain Cast Lead or Pillar of Defense. It also doesn't explain why Israel didn't claim it was going for the tunnel straightaway, rather than engineer an escalation in answer to an attack it couldn't have known of beforehand (the killing of the three settlers teens). Rather, it seems to show an Israeli doctrine of fucking Gaza once in a while to degrade Hamas' capabilities, "mowing the lawn" as it were.

So of course Israeli should protect its civilians. But as even a casual look at the numbers show, this kind of operations simply result in more Israeli deaths.