Israel

[oldie]

Oct 14, 2023 20:04:07 GMT trevorgas said:

Oct 14, 2023 19:26:16 GMT oldie said:

Absolutely
Don't you also find it sickening that so many of our fellow supporters say on here that all this is ok?

I can't understand and rationalise why folk think it's ok,I get Francegas comments however,that doesn't justify overwhelming force against civilians,does anyone actually believe that the civilians in Gaza were aware of Hamas plans and sanctioned it.
Critically,this will result in another generation of potential terrorists.

Absolutely this.
A never ending cycle of violence.

[oldie]

Oct 14, 2023 19:51:41 GMT francegas said:

Oct 14, 2023 16:30:00 GMT yattongas said:

When you hear the line “Israel’s response has to be proportionate “ …… what the hell does that even mean ?

Who knows Yatton. Maybe if Israel launched 1000s of rockets without warning, slayed hundreds of people enjoying a music festival, went door to door murdering innocent people, shot children in front of parents and parents in front of their children, killed babies, raped women, took 100s of hostages etc etc maybe there wouldn't be the demonstrations across the UK as it would equal and proportionate.

That is a view confined by such a narrow prism. How long has Israel been laying Gaza to a blockade?
Since 2007? If you do that, what do you expect a population to do?
It is this that drives people into the arms of the extremists. Nobody is trying to justify the actions of the lunatics in HAMAS, but some of the comments on here expose a level of ignorance which is staggering.

[pirate]

The former nightclub bouncer Avigdor Lieberman who believes Palestinian prisoners should be drowned and says there are "no innocent people" in Gaza.

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[Midsomer Murderer]

Oct 14, 2023 15:27:00 GMT trevorgas said:

Oct 14, 2023 13:22:01 GMT Midsomer Murderer said:

Only people who know are Hamas and the IDF mate. Yes it is horrific but Hamas knew the reaction would be severe

That's not the point though is it,we as democracies are meant to have moral courage and there is none of that displayed here.
How does any right thinking person believe it's ok to kill innocent civilians.

I'm afraid it happens in all wars - at least it isn't intentional like Hamas

[Midsomer Murderer]

Oct 14, 2023 15:53:20 GMT pirate said:

Oct 14, 2023 13:22:01 GMT Midsomer Murderer said:

Only people who know are Hamas and the IDF mate. Yes it is horrific but Hamas knew the reaction would be severe

This is genocidal and war crimes are being committed. The bombing of a civilian population with White Phosphorus, bombing ambulances and killing medics, deliberately targeting and killing journalists, bombing and killing civilians (as young as 2 and 5) as they fled on a convoy following a forceable transfer order and cutting off water, electricity, internet, medical supplies & humanitarian aid to a civilian population are all war crimes.

Non of this would be happening if Hamas hadn't murdered men, women and children, committed the most disgusting acts of violance and obducted innocent people including children and the elderly. Yes Israel's reaction is hard but I find if difficult to understand why some people can't understand why.

[oldie]

Oct 15, 2023 6:58:46 GMT Midsomer Murderer said:

Oct 14, 2023 15:53:20 GMT pirate said:

This is genocidal and war crimes are being committed. The bombing of a civilian population with White Phosphorus, bombing ambulances and killing medics, deliberately targeting and killing journalists, bombing and killing civilians (as young as 2 and 5) as they fled on a convoy following a forceable transfer order and cutting off water, electricity, internet, medical supplies & humanitarian aid to a civilian population are all war crimes.

Non of this would be happening if Hamas hadn't murdered men, women and children, committed the most disgusting acts of violance and obducted innocent people including children and the elderly. Yes Israel's reaction is hard but I find if difficult to understand why some people can't understand why.

I find it difficult to understand why, if a country blockades territory for 16 years, people don't expect the trapped people not to rise up?

[Midsomer Murderer]

Oct 15, 2023 8:00:44 GMT oldie said:

Oct 15, 2023 6:58:46 GMT Midsomer Murderer said:

Non of this would be happening if Hamas hadn't murdered men, women and children, committed the most disgusting acts of violance and obducted innocent people including children and the elderly. Yes Israel's reaction is hard but I find if difficult to understand why some people can't understand why.

I find it difficult to understand why, if a country blockades territory for 16 years, people don't expect the trapped people not to rise up?

Rise up ? Against women and children ?

[oldie]

Oct 15, 2023 13:55:47 GMT Midsomer Murderer said:

Oct 15, 2023 8:00:44 GMT oldie said:

I find it difficult to understand why, if a country blockades territory for 16 years, people don't expect the trapped people not to rise up?

Rise up ? Against women and children ?

Absolutely not....of course. But I am just trying to draw context for all this. A state cannot cause so much damage on a population and not expect it to blow up.

[pirate]

Oct 15, 2023 6:58:46 GMT Midsomer Murderer said:

Oct 14, 2023 15:53:20 GMT pirate said:

This is genocidal and war crimes are being committed. The bombing of a civilian population with White Phosphorus, bombing ambulances and killing medics, deliberately targeting and killing journalists, bombing and killing civilians (as young as 2 and 5) as they fled on a convoy following a forceable transfer order and cutting off water, electricity, internet, medical supplies & humanitarian aid to a civilian population are all war crimes.

Non of this would be happening if Hamas hadn't murdered men, women and children, committed the most disgusting acts of violance and obducted innocent people including children and the elderly. Yes Israel's reaction is hard but I find if difficult to understand why some people can't understand why.

Surely everyone agrees Hamas' crimes are disgusting, but the response from the Israelis has been totally disproportionate and their reaction has been to commit mass war crimes and collective punishment on the innocent civilian population (around half of whom are children) who have been subjected to an inhumane land, sea and air blockade for the past 16 years. The Palestinians are being genocided by a powerful Israeli military machine funded to the tune of £3billion per year from the US and Palestinians don't even have a proper army, navy or air force to protect them. This isn't a fair fight or even a "war"...this is a genocide.

[pirate]

Oct 14, 2023 18:01:21 GMT baggins said:

There's a part of me that thinks this is the perfect excuse for Israel to flatten Palestine.

There's also a part of me that wonders why the Palestinian forces can't get rid of Hamas themselves.

There's another part of me that wonders why Nations can jump to attention in this area but won't help the Ukraine. Or anyone else.

Too simple?

There have been recent protests in Gaza about the difficult living conditions and with Hamas flags even set on fire etc 

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As for the "perfect excuse for Israel to flatten Palestine" I'm reminded of that quote from Netanyahu reported in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: “Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy" 

Others have previously made interesting comments... 

"Hamas and Likud benefit from violence. There is a natural affinity that exists in a limited way between the policies and goals of Hamas and the political objectives of the Likud Bloc that has brought them together. Every time Israeli and Palestinian negotiators appeared ready to take a major step toward achieving peace, an act of Hamas terrorism has scuttled the peace process and has pushed the two sides apart." - 'Sharon and Hamas' by Ray Hanania, Counterpunch, 

January 18, 2003 

Robert Dreyfuss, author of 'Devil’s Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam': “And beginning in 1967 through the late 1980s, Israel helped the Muslim Brotherhood establish itself in the occupied territories.  It assisted Ahmed Yassin, the leader of the Brotherhood, in creating Hamas, betting that its Islamist character would weaken the PLO.”

According to Charles Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia: “Israel started Hamas. It was a project of Shin Bet [Isreali domestic intelligence agency], which had a feeling that they could use it to hem in the PLO.”

New York Times Reporter David Shipler cites the Israeli military governor of Gaza as boasting that Israel expressly financed the fundamentalists against the PLO: “Politically speaking, Islamic fundamentalists were sometimes regarded as useful to Israel, because they had conflicts with the secular supporters of the PLO.  Violence between the two groups erupted occasionally on West Bank university campuses. Israeli military governor of the Gaza Strip, Brigadier General Yitzhak Segev, once told me how he had financed the Islamic movement as a counterweight to the PLO and the Communists.  ‘The Israeli Government gave me a budget and the military government gives to the mosques,’ he said.”  

“Supporting the radical elements of Muslim fundamentalism sat well with the Mossad’s general plan for the region. An Arab world run by fundamentalists would not be a party to any negotiations with the West, thus leaving Israel again as the only democratic, rational country in the region. And if the Mossad could arrange for the Hamas (Palestinian fundamentalists) to take over the Palestinian streets from the PLO, then the picture would be complete.”

—pg.197, 'The Other Side of Deception', Victor Ostrovsky (former Israeli Mossad case officer)

[pirate]

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[pirate]

👇🏻 

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[francegas]

Oct 15, 2023 17:01:25 GMT pirate said:

Oct 15, 2023 6:58:46 GMT Midsomer Murderer said:

Non of this would be happening if Hamas hadn't murdered men, women and children, committed the most disgusting acts of violance and obducted innocent people including children and the elderly. Yes Israel's reaction is hard but I find if difficult to understand why some people can't understand why.

Surely everyone agrees Hamas' crimes are disgusting, but the response from the Israelis has been totally disproportionate and their reaction has been to commit mass war crimes and collective punishment on the innocent civilian population (around half of whom are children) who have been subjected to an inhumane land, sea and air blockade for the past 16 years. The Palestinians are being genocided by a powerful Israeli military machine funded to the tune of £3billion per year from the US and Palestinians don't even have a proper army, navy or air force to protect them. This isn't a fair fight or even a "war"...this is a genocide.

You say the response from Israel is disproportionate can I ask, in your view, what would be a proportionate response? how many innocent Palestinians can Israel kill to make it proportionate?

The bombing of Coventry was the single most concentrated attack on a British City during World war 2. In one night 4300 homes were destroyed and an estimated 554 deaths.It is said that Churchill ordered the bombing of Dresden as payback for Coventry. The bombing of Dresden killed in excess of 25000 people. Was Dresden in your view disproportionate, was it genocide, was it a war crime? It probably helped to bring the war in Europe to an end.

Was Hiroshima disproportionate even though it effectively bought the war to an end?

Imagine if these events hadn't happened where would the world be now?

If Hammas decide to attack the state of Israel who as you say are a military machine how do they expect Israel to respond?

It's the innocent civilians on both sides who I feel for. It's wrong for Israel to cut off supplies/water etc to Gaza but I'm sorry the word genocide is too freely used these days. What happened to the Jews was genocide, what happened in Rwanda and Cambodia was genocide this unfortunately is war instigated by Hamas.

[oldie]

Oct 16, 2023 8:07:32 GMT francegas said:

Oct 15, 2023 17:01:25 GMT pirate said:

Surely everyone agrees Hamas' crimes are disgusting, but the response from the Israelis has been totally disproportionate and their reaction has been to commit mass war crimes and collective punishment on the innocent civilian population (around half of whom are children) who have been subjected to an inhumane land, sea and air blockade for the past 16 years. The Palestinians are being genocided by a powerful Israeli military machine funded to the tune of £3billion per year from the US and Palestinians don't even have a proper army, navy or air force to protect them. This isn't a fair fight or even a "war"...this is a genocide.

You say the response from Israel is disproportionate can I ask, in your view, what would be a proportionate response? how many innocent Palestinians can Israel kill to make it proportionate?

The bombing of Coventry was the single most concentrated attack on a British City during World war 2. In one night 4300 homes were destroyed and an estimated 554 deaths.It is said that Churchill ordered the bombing of Dresden as payback for Coventry. The bombing of Dresden killed in excess of 25000 people. Was Dresden in your view disproportionate, was it genocide, was it a war crime? It probably helped to bring the war in Europe to an end.

Was Hiroshima disproportionate even though it effectively bought the war to an end?

Imagine if these events hadn't happened where would the world be now?

If Hammas decide to attack the state of Israel who as you say are a military machine how do they expect Israel to respond?

It's the innocent civilians on both sides who I feel for. It's wrong for Israel to cut off supplies/water etc to Gaza but I'm sorry the word genocide is too freely used these days. What happened to the Jews was genocide, what happened in Rwanda and Cambodia was genocide this unfortunately is war instigated by Hamas.

Context is everything.
But in any event revenge is rarely a precursor to peace.
Btw, the carpet, fire, bombing of Dresden was a terrible act of revenge, one arguably did nothing to shorten the war which was already in its final months from conclusion.

[Midsomer Murderer]

Oct 15, 2023 17:01:25 GMT pirate said:

Oct 15, 2023 6:58:46 GMT Midsomer Murderer said:

Non of this would be happening if Hamas hadn't murdered men, women and children, committed the most disgusting acts of violance and obducted innocent people including children and the elderly. Yes Israel's reaction is hard but I find if difficult to understand why some people can't understand why.

Surely everyone agrees Hamas' crimes are disgusting, but the response from the Israelis has been totally disproportionate and their reaction has been to commit mass war crimes and collective punishment on the innocent civilian population (around half of whom are children) who have been subjected to an inhumane land, sea and air blockade for the past 16 years. The Palestinians are being genocided by a powerful Israeli military machine funded to the tune of £3billion per year from the US and Palestinians don't even have a proper army, navy or air force to protect them. This isn't a fair fight or even a "war"...this is a genocide.

Agree that Israel's reaction is hard but then we and Hamas knew that would be the case.  If anything, Hamas want this to happen so they can benefit from the media attention and draw in other hostile nations.  Hamas are blocking routes out of Gaza so they are keen to exploit they deaths of their own civilian population.  Israel has prevented the spread of Muslim fundamentalism for decades and now potentially face a tough battle with Hezbollah and other state backed terrorist organisations.  There are no winners and I am sad to see to faces of the innocent victims - On both sides 

[francegas]

If you've got a spare hour and a half I really recommend watching on YouTube "Settling the Facts". It's a detailed history of Israel and the disputed settlements in the West Bank.

I always thought these settlements were illegal. It turns out that Resolution 2334 was not adopted under Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter and is not legally binding therefore rendering the settlements legal.

There are many other things this documentary highlights that I never knew so would recommend it

[stuart1974]

I can't say I'm too hopeful for their safe release.

"Earlier we heard from a spokesperson for the IDF, who said the Israeli military has contacted the families of 199 people who are being held hostage in Gaza - though he did not give details of their nationalities.

We know the hostages include at least 13 children and at least eight over-60s - including at least two over 80.

The UK's Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said on Sunday that up to 10 British people may be being held in Gaza.

The US has also confirmed a number of its citizens have been captured by Hamas, and that 13 of its citizens are missing.

Thai officials say 17 of the country's nationals are also being held in Gaza, while France says 13 of its citizens remain missing. Eight Germans, two Mexicans and one Russian-Israeli are among the hostages - their countries have said.

Many other nationalities are among those who remain missing.

Hamas has said it has hidden its hostages in "safe places and tunnels" within Gaza, and has threatened to kill them if civilian homes are bombed by Israel without warning."

[popuppirate]

BBC retracting their claims:

I'm getting bit tired of the bias, this conflict didn't begin last week and there's now atrocities on both sides. Only one side labelled as terrorists though and no talk from our government of war crimes, far from it.

[oldie]

Oct 16, 2023 19:54:41 GMT popuppirate said:

BBC retracting their claims:

I'm getting bit tired of the bias, this conflict didn't begin last week and there's now atrocities on both sides. Only one side labelled as terrorists though and no talk from our government of war crimes, far from it.

Twas ever thus Popup.

[Gassy]

Does anyone actually expect Britain to admit that an ally is committing war crimes?

After the history of the British Empire? 🤣