What is your background/interest in the Middle East?

[Artevelde]

A very large percentage of those killed were Hamas police and Hamas fighters, i.e. combattants. Comparing this to Nanking or Dresden is a perverse and disgusting travesty.

I did not compare the event with Dresden - I compared the rate of destruction of buildings (as a percentage of the total). I used this only to demonstrate that the impact of bombing was extremely high in some areas.

Many of those killed were combatants, I agree. And I genuinely believe Israel intended to target combatants.

But the majority of the dead were civilians.

Their brothers, cousins and children will likely be the next generation of terrorists.

You did make that comparison. Saying that the destruction is similar because a limited number of structures were as much destroyed as a much greater number of structures in another place and in a totally different context is ludicrous.

Fact is that the Israeli intervention in Gaza achieved its aim. The barrage of rockets stopped. And if and when the barrage of rockets resumes in the same way, the response will be pretty much the same. Action and reaction.

 

[Artevelde]

Hamas, which rules Gaza, doesn't want peace and wants to destroy Israel.

Basically, your solution would mean Israel would simply have to reverse it's withdrawal from Gaza and again occupy it. I don't think this is going to happen and it would not be smart in any event.

.

No, not at all - I suggest a far more complex arrangement than that, one largely marginalizing Hamas and with the West Bank as the key.

This is a complex issue - it is not suited to simple one line solutions. I don't have time to outline it here, but it might make a good thread some other day.

Yes, it is a complex issue. And you don't marginalize Hamas by letting them getting away with sending a barrage of missiles into Israel.

 

[Lipush]

And yet when Gaza has tried this in Gaza it has not worked - how do you explain that?

Obviously you are aware that during Operation Peace for Galilee, membership of Hezbollah rose more than 400%, despite utilizing the practices you suggest - how do you explain that?

Satan's efforts never cease. That's why.

Or we could consider something I was told in Israel:

How do you create a terrorist?

You kill his father, you arrest his brother, and you bulldoze his house.

That has happened to a Palestinian woman from the PA (fiance and brother died by IDF soldier), and she went and killed 8 Israeli children because of it.

does it make it ok? Of course not.

 

[Saigon]

Satan's efforts never cease. That's why.

Or we could consider something I was told in Israel:

How do you create a terrorist?

You kill his father, you arrest his brother, and you bulldoze his house.

That has happened to a Palestinian woman from the PA (fiance and brother died by IDF soldier), and she went and killed 8 Israeli children because of it.

does it make it ok? Of course not.

No, it doesn't make it ok - we are all responsible for our own actions.

But I find it easier to understand why someone might hate another ethnic group when I hear that this ethinic group killed his brother or something. I can imagine that that might posion your mind with hatred, or a need for revenge.

 

[P F Tinmore]

Artevelde -

I can't agree. While the number of civilian casualities was not terrible (around 2,000 Palestinian lives), I would hardly call that very slight - it is higher than the entire first Nagorno Karabakh war, for instance.

There are still people dying from exposure to the depleted uranium (and white phosphorus) used by Israel as well - almost all are children and infants.

I think we can assume that if Palestinians used depleted uranium against Israeli civilian targets - you'd be appalled. I know I would be.

Here is an overview of the damage - again. remember this is a confined area, with few avenues of escape for civilians.

Early estimates by independent contractors in Gaza say that Gaza lost nearly $2 billion in assets, including 4,000 homes destroyed.[354] The IDF destroyed 600–700 factories, small industries, workshops and business enterprises throughout the Gaza Strip,[355] 24 mosques, 31 security compounds, and 10 water or sewage lines.[356] The World Health Organization said that 34 health facilities (8 hospitals and 26 primary health care clinics) were damaged over the course of the offensive and the UNOCHA said that over 50 United Nations facilities sustained damage, of which 28 reported damage in the first three days of the operation.[357] On 22 January 2010, Israel paid $10.5 million in compensation to the United Nations for damages to UN property incurred during the Israeli offensive.[358]

A satellite-based damage assessment of the Gaza Strip by the United Nations revealed 2,692 destroyed and severely damaged buildings, 220 impact craters on roads and bridges with an estimated length of 167 km (104 mi) of paved and unpaved roads damaged, 714 impact craters on open ground or cultivated land with an estimated land area of 2,100 hectares (21 km²), 187 greenhouses completely destroyed or severely damaged with an estimated area of 28 hectares (0.28 km²), and 2,232 hectares (22.32 km²) of demolished zones targeted by IDF bulldozers, tanks and phosphorus shelling.[359]

Gaza War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of course this shows that the objective was to destroy as much civilian infrastructure as possible. An attack on civilians.

 

[Roudy]

You kill his father, you arrest his brother, and you bulldoze his house.

Oh OK! so let's not go after the terrorist mass murderers then, it might create more terrorists. Defective logic from a defective mind.

The point is that collective punishment - widely used by Israel since Intifada 1 - has helped create terror.

No one is suggesting that acts of terror should go unpunished - but punishing people who have not comitted acts of terror only encourages them to do so.

I do recommend this book on this topic:

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Israel-Palestine-How-End-1948/dp/1583225382]Amazon.com: Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948 (9781583225387): Tanya Reinhart: Books[/ame][/QUOTE]
What form of punishment do the Palestinians engage in when they shoot rockets into Israeli cities or send suicide bombers into children's schools and pizza parlors? I think you have some type of virus in your brain that makes you see everything upside down. Or perhaps you read from and follow the Mein Kampf I mean Koran.

 

[Lipush]

Or we could consider something I was told in Israel:

How do you create a terrorist?

You kill his father, you arrest his brother, and you bulldoze his house.

That has happened to a Palestinian woman from the PA (fiance and brother died by IDF soldier), and she went and killed 8 Israeli children because of it.

does it make it ok? Of course not.

No, it doesn't make it ok - we are all responsible for our own actions.

But I find it easier to understand why someone might hate another ethnic group when I hear that this ethinic group killed his brother or something. I can imagine that that might posion your mind with hatred, or a need for revenge.

Well of course. Anger is natural. wishing for revenge is natural. We feel it too, here, when someone gets blown up in a buss or a shopping mall.

After the Itamar Carnage, thousands of Israelis called for "Price Tag" action, demanding to take revenge on Palestinians for killing those little children.

But what makes us different then animals is that we're able to THINK. If all we have is "price tag" and revenge, then when will the bloodshed stop? we have to choose to make it stop.

In Judaism, we see revenge as sacred, for it appears between the two words describing God. "El Nekamot Adoni" ("God of vengeance is the Lord"). But even revenge must end at some point.

 

[Lipush]

Artevelde -

I can't agree. While the number of civilian casualities was not terrible (around 2,000 Palestinian lives), I would hardly call that very slight - it is higher than the entire first Nagorno Karabakh war, for instance.

There are still people dying from exposure to the depleted uranium (and white phosphorus) used by Israel as well - almost all are children and infants.

I think we can assume that if Palestinians used depleted uranium against Israeli civilian targets - you'd be appalled. I know I would be.

Here is an overview of the damage - again. remember this is a confined area, with few avenues of escape for civilians.

Early estimates by independent contractors in Gaza say that Gaza lost nearly $2 billion in assets, including 4,000 homes destroyed.[354] The IDF destroyed 600–700 factories, small industries, workshops and business enterprises throughout the Gaza Strip,[355] 24 mosques, 31 security compounds, and 10 water or sewage lines.[356] The World Health Organization said that 34 health facilities (8 hospitals and 26 primary health care clinics) were damaged over the course of the offensive and the UNOCHA said that over 50 United Nations facilities sustained damage, of which 28 reported damage in the first three days of the operation.[357] On 22 January 2010, Israel paid $10.5 million in compensation to the United Nations for damages to UN property incurred during the Israeli offensive.[358]

A satellite-based damage assessment of the Gaza Strip by the United Nations revealed 2,692 destroyed and severely damaged buildings, 220 impact craters on roads and bridges with an estimated length of 167 km (104 mi) of paved and unpaved roads damaged, 714 impact craters on open ground or cultivated land with an estimated land area of 2,100 hectares (21 km²), 187 greenhouses completely destroyed or severely damaged with an estimated area of 28 hectares (0.28 km²), and 2,232 hectares (22.32 km²) of demolished zones targeted by IDF bulldozers, tanks and phosphorus shelling.[359]

Gaza War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of course this shows that the objective was to destroy as much civilian infrastructure as possible. An attack on civilians.

Attack on civilians must stop when both sides respect it here. People cannot come here, expect me to feel empathy for a Palestinian mother or child, when missiles are falling in my town. There is a limit to how much people can be assholes.

 

[P F Tinmore]

Artevelde -

I can't agree. While the number of civilian casualities was not terrible (around 2,000 Palestinian lives), I would hardly call that very slight - it is higher than the entire first Nagorno Karabakh war, for instance.

There are still people dying from exposure to the depleted uranium (and white phosphorus) used by Israel as well - almost all are children and infants.

I think we can assume that if Palestinians used depleted uranium against Israeli civilian targets - you'd be appalled. I know I would be.

Here is an overview of the damage - again. remember this is a confined area, with few avenues of escape for civilians.

Early estimates by independent contractors in Gaza say that Gaza lost nearly $2 billion in assets, including 4,000 homes destroyed.[354] The IDF destroyed 600–700 factories, small industries, workshops and business enterprises throughout the Gaza Strip,[355] 24 mosques, 31 security compounds, and 10 water or sewage lines.[356] The World Health Organization said that 34 health facilities (8 hospitals and 26 primary health care clinics) were damaged over the course of the offensive and the UNOCHA said that over 50 United Nations facilities sustained damage, of which 28 reported damage in the first three days of the operation.[357] On 22 January 2010, Israel paid $10.5 million in compensation to the United Nations for damages to UN property incurred during the Israeli offensive.[358]

A satellite-based damage assessment of the Gaza Strip by the United Nations revealed 2,692 destroyed and severely damaged buildings, 220 impact craters on roads and bridges with an estimated length of 167 km (104 mi) of paved and unpaved roads damaged, 714 impact craters on open ground or cultivated land with an estimated land area of 2,100 hectares (21 km²), 187 greenhouses completely destroyed or severely damaged with an estimated area of 28 hectares (0.28 km²), and 2,232 hectares (22.32 km²) of demolished zones targeted by IDF bulldozers, tanks and phosphorus shelling.[359]

Gaza War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of course this shows that the objective was to destroy as much civilian infrastructure as possible. An attack on civilians.

Attack on civilians must stop when both sides respect it here. People cannot come here, expect me to feel empathy for a Palestinian mother or child, when missiles are falling in my town. There is a limit to how much people can be assholes.

Has Israel ever told you why those rockets come out of Gaza?

Of course not.

 

[Hossfly]

Of course this shows that the objective was to destroy as much civilian infrastructure as possible. An attack on civilians.

Attack on civilians must stop when both sides respect it here. People cannot come here, expect me to feel empathy for a Palestinian mother or child, when missiles are falling in my town. There is a limit to how much people can be assholes.

Has Israel ever told you why those rockets come out of Gaza?

Of course not.

I'll play your silly game, Tinny. Why do the rockets and mortars come out of Gaza? Is it for retaliation?

 

[P F Tinmore]

Attack on civilians must stop when both sides respect it here. People cannot come here, expect me to feel empathy for a Palestinian mother or child, when missiles are falling in my town. There is a limit to how much people can be assholes.

Has Israel ever told you why those rockets come out of Gaza?

Of course not.

I'll play your silly game, Tinny. Why do the rockets and mortars come out of Gaza? Is it for retaliation?

Look it up. You wouldn't believe me anyway.

 

[Lipush]

Of course this shows that the objective was to destroy as much civilian infrastructure as possible. An attack on civilians.

Attack on civilians must stop when both sides respect it here. People cannot come here, expect me to feel empathy for a Palestinian mother or child, when missiles are falling in my town. There is a limit to how much people can be assholes.

Has Israel ever told you why those rockets come out of Gaza?

Of course not.

As the small person, I don't really care for the reason of the Gaza rockets being fired as much as the Palestinian doesn't care for the reason why Gaza is attacked by the IDF.

I just want it to stop. I really don't care about the logic behind the insanity of the situation i'm living in. YOU outsiders look for reason or logic. In time of war, where we live in, we don't try to find reasoning. We simply live.

That is what separate you from us. after you turn off your computer, you go living your life in the good ol' American movie. -We- live in the same situation in which we discuss.

You get me now?

 

[Roudy]

Of course this shows that the objective was to destroy as much civilian infrastructure as possible. An attack on civilians.

Attack on civilians must stop when both sides respect it here. People cannot come here, expect me to feel empathy for a Palestinian mother or child, when missiles are falling in my town. There is a limit to how much people can be assholes.

Has Israel ever told you why those rockets come out of Gaza?

Of course not.

Has Hamas told you why Israel keeps sending their leaders to Mars? Of course not. I heard the Mars Rover found parts of Sheikh Yassin's wheelchair on mars. I wonder how it got there? Any guesses there, Tiny Brain?

 

[P F Tinmore]

Attack on civilians must stop when both sides respect it here. People cannot come here, expect me to feel empathy for a Palestinian mother or child, when missiles are falling in my town. There is a limit to how much people can be assholes.

Has Israel ever told you why those rockets come out of Gaza?

Of course not.

As the small person, I don't really care for the reason of the Gaza rockets being fired as much as the Palestinian doesn't care for the reason why Gaza is attacked by the IDF.

I just want it to stop. I really don't care about the logic behind the insanity of the situation i'm living in. YOU outsiders look for reason or logic. In time of war, where we live in, we don't try to find reasoning. We simply live.

That is what separate you from us. after you turn off your computer, you go living your life in the good ol' American movie. -We- live in the same situation in which we discuss.

You get me now?

OK, but what have you done to stop the war or do you just support it?

 

[Hossfly]

Has Israel ever told you why those rockets come out of Gaza?

Of course not.

As the small person, I don't really care for the reason of the Gaza rockets being fired as much as the Palestinian doesn't care for the reason why Gaza is attacked by the IDF.

I just want it to stop. I really don't care about the logic behind the insanity of the situation i'm living in. YOU outsiders look for reason or logic. In time of war, where we live in, we don't try to find reasoning. We simply live.

That is what separate you from us. after you turn off your computer, you go living your life in the good ol' American movie. -We- live in the same situation in which we discuss.

You get me now?

OK, but what have you done to stop the war or do you just support it?

She said she was a soldier and is now going to university.
What is your claim to fame?

 

[Unkotare]

I know, let's have both sides agree to stop attacking each other. How about both sides at the very least agree that deliberately attacking non-combatants is off limits. What about both sides agreeing that the other side has the right to exist? How's that for a start? When you see one side that refuses to agree to even try that much you know which side to blame for the on-going bloodshed.

 

[Hossfly]

I know, let's have both sides agree to stop attacking each other. How about both sides at the very least agree that deliberately attacking non-combatants is off limits. What about both sides agreeing that the other side has the right to exist? How's that for a start? When you see one side that refuses to agree to even try that much you know which side to blame for the on-going bloodshed.

Hamas Charter explains everything in detail. Let's start with that. Over.

 

[P F Tinmore]

I know, let's have both sides agree to stop attacking each other. How about both sides at the very least agree that deliberately attacking non-combatants is off limits. What about both sides agreeing that the other side has the right to exist? How's that for a start? When you see one side that refuses to agree to even try that much you know which side to blame for the on-going bloodshed.

How about both sides at the very least agree that deliberately attacking non-combatants is off limits.

Hamas has already made that offer to Israel. Israel rejected it.

 

[Unkotare]

I know, let's have both sides agree to stop attacking each other. How about both sides at the very least agree that deliberately attacking non-combatants is off limits. What about both sides agreeing that the other side has the right to exist? How's that for a start? When you see one side that refuses to agree to even try that much you know which side to blame for the on-going bloodshed.

How about both sides at the very least agree that deliberately attacking non-combatants is off limits.

Hamas has already made that offer to Israel. Israel rejected it.

Link?

And how about the part where they both agree that the other side has the right to exist?

 

[Hossfly]

I know, let's have both sides agree to stop attacking each other. How about both sides at the very least agree that deliberately attacking non-combatants is off limits. What about both sides agreeing that the other side has the right to exist? How's that for a start? When you see one side that refuses to agree to even try that much you know which side to blame for the on-going bloodshed.

How about both sides at the very least agree that deliberately attacking non-combatants is off limits.

Hamas has already made that offer to Israel. Israel rejected it.

Absolutely! Who would agree to co-operate with someone whos State Charter says they will annihilate you?