Israel vs. Hamas

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As I said earlier, I think everyone needs to stop focusing on the history, history varies depending on who tells it.

 

I just got my new Obama stickers in the mail, and it's no longer "Yes, we can" - "It's, Yes we DID."

http://www.stickershoppe.com/sticker-shop/catalog/yes-we-did.html

 

Ah but shoshino remember "those who forget the past are bound to repeat it".

So even though your neighbor keeps threatening to kill you, you should just ignore him as he is really just a chummy guy? Not no but hell no.
You do realise that there are very few points in Israel that are more than 20 miles from either the West bank or Gaza strip dont you? So all of Israel is a potential target to random rocket fire.
Would you expect ANY other country to allow enemies(with a history of attacking civiliian targets) to remain in place/living that close to their main population centers? No.

Pretty funny as Egypt, Jordan & Syria(you know the countries that have supplied most of the troops in the major wars against Israel) all have now signed peace treaties with Israel acknowledging their right to exist.
If the countries that (arguably) lost the most citizens to israel are willing to make peace with them, why can't hamas?

The U.N. F'd up with their special definition of "palestinian" refugees(that they apply to NO other group) & now it is coming back to bite them in the butt. This grievous piece of legalese helped the palestinian "national identity" form wrongly into the unbalanced one it is today.

Got your PM rags, Need to change the example to : if a german moved to africa for 2-3 generations would you still be able to claim they are german citizens or would they be citizens of the country they are born in. Do you get what i am saying now or did i murk it up again?


Edit: Well it looks like Israel has grown tired of the rocket fire & are sending ground troops into Gaza now to find the Hamas members hiding among the civilian population.

 

Minor nitpick: Syria and Israel have not signed a peace treaty. Yet. They are still arguing over the Golan Heights, that rightfully belong to Syria, but were annexed (this time for real) by Israel in the 6-Days-War.

Last I heard, the negotiations are coming along at a slow, but steady pace. It'll probably end with Israel withdrawing against a security from syrian attacks plus continuing access to water from the Lake Genneseret, because it's tributaries lie in the annexed region.

 

The past will always repeat iteslf, because humans are ignorant, arrogant, greedy, selfish creatures.

 

Don't American conservatives like to mock hearts-for-brains for the 'but he had a bad childhood' excuse for bullying or crime? Undeniably, Israel has had 'a rough upbringing'. That doesn't change a thing about that it is a bully now. The Israelis military has an interest to make Gaza an example to show that they are over their defeat in Lebanon 2006 at the hands of Hezbollah. They want to restore 'deterence', and, of course, pre-empt Obama. And then, there are Israeli elections ahead.

Hamas has recently shown signs of moderation, which threatened to make them acceptable for deal making. Israel has never liked moderates, heck, thinking of Rabin, they even kill their own. I think this probably also contributed to the decision to launch the current war. The war now kills those leaders and radicalises the base, making negotiations like the ones Obama imagined near impossible. From their position of strength, Israel gets more out of opposing radicals.

I think Nasser was right about the Israeli security doctrine. Israel wants to reaffirm the military supremacy over all its neighbours which they enjoyed since 1948. The war is meant as a warning to Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as to Syria and Iran. Israel wants total freedom to hit, with impunity. It is totally opposed to a regional balance of power which might force it to moderate its actions. That is btw imo the primary reason for Israel's opposition towards Iran.

A Palestinian will tell you that all of Gaza is permanently in range of very precise and much harder hitting Israeli weapons, as it's inhabitants are frequently reminded. Let's keep things in proportion. The missiles are a dangerous nuisance, pinpricks, but not an existential threat.

The rockets certainly are a great embarrassment to the Israeli government. It was unable to stop them except by agreeing to a truce. The rockets also angered the Israeli population, notoriously blind to any suffering but its own. They today are largely supportive towards military action in Gaza. For proportion: Less than 20 Israelis have been killed by rockets since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. In the same period Israel has killed some 2,000 Palestinians. Israel's hits are incomparably more lethal than anything Hamas could manage.

Israel never liked the truce with Hamas and chose not to respect its terms. Imo, Israel has no interest in a negotiated peace. Peace means retraction, it means ceding territory. Israel is still bent on expansion. That is what the continued theft of West Bank land and the mushrooming settlements are all about, together with the demolition of Palestinian homes, the security wall, the settlers-only road network, the stifling of the Palestinian economy by over 600 checkpoints, and so forth.

Huh? Ever looked up the Gaza strip on a map, or Google Earth? The entire Gaza strip, population 1.500.000 or so, is a little smaller than the city I live in, Cologne, which has a million inhabitants and an area of about 400 square kilometres. My city has 2460 inhabitants per square kilometer. The Gaza strip, 360 square kilometers large, has 4600 inhabitants per km. That's a small, densely populated place. There is no place where there is no population. To meet your requirements for Hamas would mean to not fight at all. They just don't have the terrain available to cooperatively separate themselves from the population to be slaughtered in a square and unfair fight against Israel's technologically vastly superior army.

Now why rockets? Well, why does Israel uses armed drones and aircraft? Because they reach far? Because they are easy to use? Because they are much harder to stop than suicide bombers, and their firing requires far less sophistication and operational planning? Because it preserves manpower? Because the persistent rocket fire reminds Israel of the limits of Israeli power?

The most obvious point would be this: Because Hamas is a religiously driven organisation whereas the others are largely secular nation states? Because these states were generously bribed to do so (read: US military aid)? Because Egypt gave Israel a bloodied nose in 1973 and achieved all their war aims and got back the Sinai? You have a short historical memory.

Hamas is different. Muslim theology doesn't allow for peace in war about holy sites with the infidels (don't forget Al Aqsa, the temple mount, for instance), and it is for the very same reason that during the crusades there never was peace in the holy land, just truces like said hudna. Incomprehensible? Well, if you need examples for religious rigidity, read NOG (or Gnarff) on gays, or Chev on marriage.

The UN's fault? What does make a New Yorker? A piece of paper? Or growing up there? Don't you think that the experience of emigration, displacement and living in refugee camps in countries who don't really want you (Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt) suffices? Or living in the occupied territories under Israeli military occupation? Do you think it needed a piece of paper or a UN decision to make them a people? The point is moot eventually, as the Palestinians now have said group identity and that needs to be taken into account. I presume they don't care whether you or NOG think or feel their idenity is sufficiently 'geniune' or not.

The short answer is yes. A descendant of German citizen has under ius sanguis German citizenship, even after several generations. That is actually pretty common a scenario for descendants of Germans who lived in Russia or Romania, or descendants of Germans living in former German colonies, namely Namibia.

 

Ragusa,the point is still that Hamas can stop firing rockets at civilians at any time with no more consequence than it's members getting mad at it. Doing this would win them international support which could lead to real progress against Israel. They don't. Israel can't effectively stop their retaliations as doing so would essentially give Hamas a free hand. Nor could they take down the wall because that would allow terrorists free access to Israel. Could they tone down their responses? Could they start treating the Palestinians as real people? Yes, and they should. But that's a small step compared to Hamas's potential huge step.

In the end, the fact is that neither of them seem to really want peace. They want to mercilessly slaughter one another until one side is entirely gone. At this rate, that'll be the Palestinians, not the Israelis.

Yes, please do. Ragusa, if you think that's religious rigidity, then it's no wonder you've sided with Hamas. You seem to think anything other than total surrender is being rigid. You do realize my posts have been about actually solving the problem, don't you? In fact, my most recent suggestion would, on the rhetorical level, hand a total victory to the gays.

 

Wow, talk about selective history ragusa you seem to have forgotten a lot

The only thing that kept the Israelis from wiping out the Egyptian 3rd army was the US asking them not to(the US did this to force the Egyptians further away from the soviets).

Also Egypt didn't get the Sinai back until the camp david accords in '78 & the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty in '79

 

Im sure your opinion would differ if it was your house they were landing on.

 

Yes, probably, but then I am not the prime minister of Israel who has to care for an entire people, for beyond tomorrow. I find it hard to digest that the current war is seen as one sided Hamas on Israel violence. That is not so. Israel is just as culpable. It has quite consciously and intentionally not honoured the hudna with Hamas. So it is worth keeping in mind that numerous Israeli breaches of the ceasefire have all but made certain that Israel and Hamas are where they are now. Initial rocket firings, like on November 4th, were retaliatory in nature. Israel very much wanted this war.

The other aspect is that Israel's position in face of demographics and their policies is unsustainable in the long run. Already Israelis, mainly moderates, are emigrating, tired of the violence. Who remains is certainly the hard core, the settlers, who have the most children of all Israelis, who are not and have never been in a mood for compromise or reconciliation. I see Israel in the long run shifting politically to the right, which in Israel's case means more of what we see in Gaza now. At some time all their weapons and military support won't help them any more against all the hostility their indifferent heavy handedness creates now. I fear that day. There are limits to what war can accomplish. The current policy is simply stupid, irresponsible, unsustainable. Interesting enough is the question if Israel could afford its aggressiveness without US support in arms, leverage and money.

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Yes, and for the Sinai Nasser was more than willing to give up the Soviets.

Wiki has its limits, martaug. Try history books. I have my take on the successful limited war that Nasser waged from "The 1973 Arab-Israeli War", by David T. Buckwalter. Interesting book.

War is an instrument of policy, a means by which nations may achieve political ends. Nasser never expected to beat Israel, he made that clear to his people when he started the war. His goal was to get back the Sinai, by drawing outsiders, the US, in to intervene. To bring Israel into negotiating mood for the first time, he had to first shatter not the Israeli army but shatter (over-)confidence of the Israeli intelligence by surprising Israel, shatter the nimbus of invincibility of the Israeli Air Force through the successful use of surface air missiles and shatter the myth of easy and cheap Israeli victories by letting Israel bleed - and his initial assault and the surprising and well executed crossing of the Nile and the very successful initial offensive achieved that.

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I speak of Hamas' religious rigidity I didn't read your posts, but I am certain that you didn't abandon religious principle there, namely that gays are sinners and should repent and become straight again. Well, that is the point with Hamas. You cannot expect them to abandon religious principle. Also, I have no illusions about Hamas, their religious fervor and their ruthlessness. I also see that they can be dealt with on religious terms like a hudna.

I have no illusions about Israel, too. Especially I am acutely aware that Israel has to make peace at some time. That doesn't mean I like or side with Hamas. I only see they are there, can't be defeated and are the only credible partner for Israel to deal with - peace you have to make with your enemies. Despite their superiority, I don't see Israel capable of winning decisively, and currently I see Israel unwilling to make peace. Except for those irritating missiles they actually appear to like the status quo, including walled in Gaza and West Bank and the absence of peace, a lot. The loonies currently still inhabitating the Whitehouse encouraging Israel actively, are in fact helping Israel over the cliff.

 

this is a quote from the article about the one breach, that Im goint to bring to the fore front of "disproportionate force" for those who see Israel as constand disproportionate force look at Hamas's response to a raid.
Hamas attempted to kill hundreds, just because theyre bad at what they do doesnt change their intentions.

 

Here is where I usually give up and I have, it is impossible to have a reasonable discourse on this subject as anyone who do not view the Palestinians as murderous monsters which more or less need to be eradicated and Israel as a poor victim who is just defending themselves are labelled as a terrorist lover. Any claim that there are two viscious sides of bad guys gets shouted down as terrorist loving. When the Palestinian kills someone it is an atrocity while when the Israelis kill 100 it is selfdefence. This despite it is the Palestinians who are occupied, who live constantly under martial law, walled in and where their opressors control every aspect of their life and can and do starve and bomb them on a whim.

I can not understand how anyone can see Israel as a victim and as a good guy in this conflict they have created a monster, quite intentionally I think, and are quite satisfied with baiting it until it kills itself. Imagine if the situation was reversed, that it was the jews in the promised lands who lived walled in, without even the basic nescessities and who were subjugated to all kinds of humiliations who would paint them as the sole evil agressors if they fought back with any means possible?

 

... Did you really just admit this? Ok, that explains a lot. Go read them. It may radically change your view of me. It may not, of course, but it may.

See, here we disagree. Israel has the military capability to completely wipe the entire Gaza Strip and West Bank off the map without putting a single foot on the ground. I'm not talking about conquering the people, I'm talking about anihilating them. Thankfully, to date, Israeli leadership has been unwilling to do this, and I think even the most hardline in the government would shirk such an idea. Still, the capability is there, and I fear that if things escalate too much, it may be seriously considered. That's why I say Hamas can't win with their current tactics. They can't do serious harm, yet serious harm can be done to them.

I'm still not sure what religious principle forces them to eradicate all Israelis. Could you explain that? I'm serious here, I'm not that familiar with their theology.

I have yet to hear these claims made. I've even seen several people (myself included) admit that Israel isn't a 'good guy' in this. I can understand if you fear this will happen, but I see no trace of it so far.

 

I dont believe any of the bias drivvel which comes out of both sides and their supporters world wide, the history varies depending on who tells it, everyone is out to serve their own goal.
there will never be peace because neither side will ever back down, Israel will always exist and the arabs will always want to fight them, governments cannot control their people who take actions into their own hands as the please.

Incidently it is currently Egypt preventing food from entering the west bank, not Israel

Theology doesnt matter, any zelot will twist their religion to suit their own ends. The majority... quite possibly all wars? have been started/fired by religion.

 

And you don't think that has to do with US and Israeli pressure?

This is silly. Yes, religion has often been used a s pretext. So what? You conclude from that that religion is always a pretext? Want to make a natural law out of that? Get real.

Even today theology does matter very much. And why is it about zealots 'twisting their religion'? For that to say you need to know what 'real Islam' is like. Do you know that? And are you really so naive to believe that it is about twisting and distorting religion? That religion is just their pretext for something else? In that case you're fatally wrong. There are a lot of people that are apparently so secular and complacent that they cannot comprehend that there still are people in this world who are unlike them religious enough to want to fight and die for their faith. Said attitude leads to them missing a major chunk of the picture. Hamas religiosity is real, they wouldn't have as widespread grass roots support if they were a mere gang of kooks far out of line with Islam. Do you really think Hamas needs to brainwash and trick suicide bombers with distorted religion? Suicide bombers are walk in volunteers.

The Muslim militiamen of the Hizbullah, Hamas and so forth have a major advantage in fighting the Israelis. These Muslim fighters all believe in an afterlife in which they will be rewarded for their shihada, their testimony, their martyrdom in what they believe to be the path of God. If you do not think that they believe that, then you are truly clueless. There are not many Israeli Jewish soldiers who think the same thing. Some, but not many. This makes for a wildly disparate attitude towards casualties. Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon dug in and wore body armor. That doesn't mean they were cowards. They don't fear death. But they don't want to die a pointless death. It's because they fight better that way. We speak of very determined people.

Also, I sense you only see zealotry on the Palestinian side. Mind you, the term 'zealot' got its connotation when it was used to describe Jewish suicide guerrillas who fought Roman occupation.

 

As you reacted highly emotionally towards me in particular a few posts earlier, I just want to clarify that I wouldn't call anyone in this thread a 'terrorist lover', including you.
And I don't see in any of your posts or that of others that would justify such a labeling.
I didn't say such things nor did anyone else here in this thread.
You imply as well some extreme opinions upon others (e.g. "view the Palestinians as murderous monsters") which isn't true, at least in my case.
I don't judge people in general because they are the same like you and me. I only judge behaviour, ideology, religion, something that motivates humankind to do things for the worse or the better.
As English isn't my native tongue I have problems to write lengthy and illustrative posts, so I see I could be misunderstood.
When I talk about cruel islamists, I do so because they simply exist (see Mumbay, and hundreds of other incidents). That doesn't mean all muslim people are bad.A minority is (in my opinion).
But sadly sometimes this minority has a big influence on a lot of others not so radical.

No.
I would take a more broader approach and say they are started/fired by some kind of ideology, be it religion, some kind of philosophy ('all arians are supreme', 'communism shall reign'...) or just the stupidity of humankind with their greed and hunger for power.

In the palestinian conflict the cause is mostly due to religion, though, in the cause of the muslim participants.I don't see this aspect in the Israelis, but this
is my opinion and I accept there are others who see it differently.

 

nope, the Egyptians have their own reasons, they're happily supplying medicen into the area and stockpiling the food.

what?

define 'real Islam'

people read into their own religion as they see fit, 9/11 is an example of that, do you honstly think that the muslim religion says to wipe out the west? no, its manipulated by religious leaders to their own ends.

to quote George Carlin "thou shalt try real hard not to kill anyone, unless they pray to a different invisible man they you do"

Religion was designed to control, so, yes it is a pretext.

No, once again you are missing a point, they arent a mere gang of 'krooks', they are religious leaders who have convinced their followers that they represent the word of Islam and thus they are obeyed.

yes, because they believe what they are told.

when did I imply that?

yes, what makes people more determined then anything else? their beliefs, wghich are dictated to them by their religious leaders.

nope, I dont pick sides, to me all religions are equally dangerous.

 

You think I was I was highly emotional Hannibal? Jeeeeeeeesus, it was more an expression of despair about just how little you understood of my post and how incredibly funkily you managed to twist everything and continue to twist so I stand by my earlier judgement of you, heck I would even say I was underestimating things as it was then mostly tongue in cheek.

NOG and the rest you have all definately taking sides and you are arguing against people who are trying to argue this issue from the middle. I have not seen anyone in this thread taking the Palestinian side, maybe coin or that duckula figure. What I see are Israel supporters arguing with people who argue from the center. Heck, as Ragusa has pointed out the average Israeli is more "anti-Israel" than the, mostly American, view of the situation a lot of people here express.

[ Really, there's no need to continue to stand by something that you were previously corrected on. ] - Beren

 

as far as I can tell, the opinion from the people you are saying are pro-Israel is simply Hamas arent going to achieve peace by fireing missiles into Israel. not Israel should wipe them out

 

I sent you a PM one day ago. I hope we can clarify personal diputes on this level without abusing this thread with it. Any further personal attack I will comment since now only via PM.

What is the point? Everyone has opinions and is therefore taking sides be it left middle or right.