Israel, Hamas and Gaza

[solicitr]

Because it hasn't come up yet. I think you know where I stand.

EDIT: Text of the new patrioric Hamas video:

For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry
In which excel the women and all the people of this land:
The older people excel, the jihadists excel
And the children excel
Consequently, [the Palestinians] created a human shield of women, children
Older people and jihadists
Against the Zionist bombing machine
That is telling the Zionist enemy
We want death just as much as you desire life.

So, who wants to be the first to defend the heirs of Heydrich and Eichmann?

[TheEllipticalDisillusion]

I say let 'em kill each other.

[superwizard]

who wants to defend Hamas? Not me sir you can look elsewhere.

Who wants to stand up and say that the killing of over 100 women and children was wrong? I cannot but say I.

I will not go into a lengthy argument about this issue and I must apologize for that really but I can't right now my plate is too full.

I had a lengthy discussion with my friend about this issue and the conclusion was that simply I cannot accept this notion of civilian deaths being justified unless there is clear and absolute proof that no other means whatsoever would have led to a cease fire. In this case neither Israel nor Hamas fulfilled that requirement.

Trust me I know the arguments both sides of the coin espouse and I can predict what others will say (arguing Hamas wants to wipe out all Israel from the map and such) but if you want to get rid of Hamas try empowering others (by making successful peace treaties) and then see how the Palestinians would flock towards them. In the short term negotiations with Hamas are possible and there is no reason to go and bomb the daylights out of an impoverished strip of land where people live in hunger and misery already.

At the end of the day all I can say is that the murder of innocent civilians is a crime no matter who that person may be and based on such a belief I must condemn the actions of both Hamas and Israel.

[solicitr]

I can predict what others will say (arguing Hamas wants to wipe out all Israel from the map and such)..... In the short term negotiations with Hamas are possible

Really?

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (the Cedar tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."
--Article 7 of the Hamas Covenant

The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. No one can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it.'
--Article 11

'Palestine is an Islamic land... Since this is the case, the Liberation of Palestine is an individual duty for every Moslem wherever he may be.'
--Article 13

The day the enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In the face of the Jews' usurpation, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.
--Article 15

Peace initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement... Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam... There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility.
--Article 13

Egypt was, to a great extent, removed from the circle of struggle through the treacherous Camp David Agreement. The Zionists are trying to draw other Arab countries into similar agreements in order to bring them outside the circle of struggle....Leaving the circle of struggle against Zionism is high treason, and cursed be he who perpetrates such an act.
--Article 32

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"We will not rest until we destroy the Zionist entity"

--Hamas leader Fathi Hammad, January 2nd 2009

I'm sorry, SW, but another bogus hudna like the one just ended is not peace. It is a false pretence of peace. (How many rockets during the 'cease-fire?')

Nor can I accept the posture of 'moral equivalency' adopted by the Polyannas, the dupes, the Useful I**ots, several cowardly 'allied' governments, and of course the closet anti-Semites. These people need to whip out the checkbooks and buy themselves each a moral compass. Hamas has no purpose in existing but the destruction of Israel: and the deaths of Gazan children are due far more to the inhuman zealots who coldly deliberately use them as human shields, and their mangled bodies as propaganda props (Contrast the IDF, which actually contacts target-building residents and warns them to get out!) Hamas' leadership loves dead Israeli civilians- but in their twisted minds dead Palestinian civilians are even better. You can't get much more evil than that. It's a shame that lots of little German children died in the 1940s, but it was unavoidable in order to rid the world of a monstrous regime which was, after all, the 'legitimately elected' government of the German people.

If you wish for peace in the Middle East, as I'm sure we all do, then Hamas' murderous vipers must be eliminated. They will never agree to peace, nor permit peace to be made by Fatah or anyone else, so long as there is breath in their hate-filled bodies.

Postscript:

The Meccan [Quran] chapter entitled 'Jews' or 'Children of Israel' is remarkable... It's about today's Jews, those of our century, and speaks only of extermination and digging graves... This chapter sentences the Jews to extermination before a single Jew existed on earth...
Palestine's blessing is linked to destruction of the center of global corruption, the snake's head. When the snake's head of corruption is cut off, here in Palestine, and when the octopus's tentacles are cut off around the world, the real blessing will come with the destruction of the Jews, here in Palestine, and it is one of the splendid real blessings in Palestine

Muhammad's promise is that all Jews will be killed. We have no business talking to Jews. Regarding the Jews, our business with them is only through bombs and guns.
--Hamas spiritual leader Nizar Rayan, the day before his well-deserved death Friday.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

soli, I agree that negotiating with Hamas is futile. But Israel is just falling right into Hamas's trap by responding the way they have. They are actually strengthening Hamas's position, and weakening their own. What they should be doing is showing the Palestinian people that they can have a better life, rather than continually adding to their hopelessness, which just feeds Hamas's support.

[solicitr]

There won't be any support for Hamas if there is no Hamas. Israel can't afford to quit with the job unfinished like they did in Lebanon two years ago- and I hope Olmert has learned from his mistake. They are (or should be) all in, this time around

The Israelis could do worse than to imitate our (post-Petraeus) practice in Iraq- which combined nation-building and humanitarian work with hunting down and killing the terrorists. I can see prosperity returning to Gazan towns inside the IDF security belt, once they have been cleansed of Hamas operatives.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't believe that this action has any chance of destroying Hamas. I believe that the result will be a strengthening of the bond between Hamas and the Palestinian people.

[solicitr]

All the worse for the Palestinian people, then. They chose to bind themselves to genocidal terrorists, and it is up to them to follow them into the abyss, or not.

Really it's is a very, very secondary concern compared to the primary objective: the extermination of Hamas, root and branch.

[Frelga]

Well, if you ask me, the primary concern is to stop Hamas or whoever shooting rockets into Israel. And I don't know how else Israel is going to stop them.

[Primula Baggins]

Frelga, I agree that it's a nasty problem.

So, solicitr—Israel should just keep killing Palestinians until the survivors stop hating Israel. When do you think that will happen?

Do you care what the answer is?

[River]

The only time S ever hated the US and Western Europe was when NATO was bombing Belgrade. He still gnashes his teeth whenever key names from the Clinton Administration and NATO command at the time come up. He was never a nationalist, never a Milosevic supporter, but he had some sympathy towards their position during the bombing campaign. As of 2006 there were still ruined buildings to be found in Belgrade and everyone pointed out the ones that had been rebuilt. In Novi Sad, only one of the three bridges over the Danube was fully rebuilt; the other was a temporary structure, and the third pilings. I have no idea if any progress has been made on that front.

My point is this: dropping bombs, even smart bombs, in a civilian area to punish a government does not endear you to a population. This tactic alienates even intelligent members of the opposition. Do people choose their governments? Well, it depends on how the country is set up, but the Serbs and the Palestinians did and while one might argue that the bombing campaigns are the consequences of that choice, the people living under the explosions and sirens and state of fear don't see it that way. They see themselves as attacked. They will turn to those speaking of protection and revenge. They will huddle even closer to the government that arguably brought the bombs down on them. In Serbia, it was only after the bombs stopped falling and a few other things happened that Milosevic finally went down. But during the campaign...during the campaign it was a different story.

[Túrin Turambar]

My point is this: dropping bombs, even smart bombs, in a civilian area to punish a government does not endear you to a population.

And as it stands now, the side doing this is Hamas.

[superwizard]

My point is this: dropping bombs, even smart bombs, in a civilian area to punish a government does not endear you to a population.

And as it stands now, the side doing this is Hamas.

As it stands now both sides are doing this.

I completely agree with what V and River. I cannot speak about public opinion in Gaza right now but I can talk about the current public opinion in the Arab world from from first hand accounts. If you come and see it from here all you see all the time is death death death. You see little children with their heads cut open screaming, young men with their legs missing, old women dying. Quite honestly I don't believe you can watch these videos and not feel devastated and mourn these (innocent) people's deaths. In this emotional stage people don't want to hear about long term negotiations going on slowly or about the issues in Hamas' ideology all they know is that these people are dying and Hamas is trying to defend them. This attack is simply causing Hamas to appear to be the savior not the perpetrator.

If you want to get rid of Hamas the only way to do so is by empowering others. You can cut off the top part of a weed but if you dont get at the root of it it will just sprout up again. To get rid of hamas you have to take away its base of support. Remember most of these people were supporting Fatah before they gave up on them and switched over to Hamas.

[Túrin Turambar]

My point is this: dropping bombs, even smart bombs, in a civilian area to punish a government does not endear you to a population.

And as it stands now, the side doing this is Hamas.

As it stands now both sides are doing this.

Israel is dropping bombs in civilian areas not to punish Hamas but to destroy its weapons. There's a difference.

[sauronsfinger]

I have no opinion about the events in Gaza. I do find a question asked yesterday fascinating however.

Primula asks

So, solicitr—Israel should just keep killing Palestinians until the survivors stop hating Israel. When do you think that will happen?

Do you care what the answer is?

While I am not going to speak for others, it has been my lifelong experience that when discussing the conduct of war many of the folks who have the strongest pro-war opinions generally have two factors that contribute significantly to their views
1- a very clear sense of what is "right and wrong" as seen in all things political, social and economic. They deal in stark black and white with no shades of grey. There are few if any subtleties to confuse them.
2- a fascination, almost love of the military and the events of war, soldiering, weapons, tactics and strategy. Often the person espousing such strong pro-war opinions is a veteran themselves and holds fond memories of those days and experiences.

I noticed this back in the days of the Sixties with Viet Nam and the following decades and foreign involvements have only amplified my observation. With the arrival now of forums such as this one, its even more evident.

Obviously there are exceptions to that on both sides of these military questions. But I do think there is much truth to it.

[superwizard]

And as it stands now, the side doing this is Hamas.

As it stands now both sides are doing this.

Israel is dropping bombs in civilian areas not to punish Hamas but to destroy its weapons. There's a difference.

Not to the people who live there though Lord M.

[JewelSong]

I think the situation in the Middle East is an ungodly, unholy mess and has been for thousands of years.

I sometimes wonder if it's some kind of testing ground for us as a species, and we won't be allowed to move up to the next level until we work things out there.

Consider this. The conflict goes back to Genesis, when Sarah made Abraham kick Hagar and Ishmael out of their tent, because she was jealous. God had already told Abraham that he would create a great nation from Abraham's descendants. Okay, cool. So, that's Isaac and the Jews...and later, the Christians

But after Hagar was kicked out, and sat despairing in the desert, God told her not to despair, that he would create a great nation from her son, Ishmael! And that's Mohammad and Islam.

Both religions come from the same ancestor. Both have been duking it out in the Promised Land since then. I can't help but think that it's some kind of test from God...to see if we can get past the "My Religion is the One True Religion and You are Nothing But a Godless Heathen" bit.

So far, we fail.

[solicitr]

So, solicitr—Israel should just keep killing Palestinians until the survivors stop hating Israel.

No, Prim. Just kill Hamas. There is a distinction.

Whether or nor others 'stop hating' Israel is a secondary point- so long as their hate does not (or has not the capacity to) endanger the nation's survival. Many Iraqis hate us- but Saddam is dead and AQI crushed, and this is because most Iraqis may not love us, but they really hate both Baathists and jihadi psychos.

What is the alternative? Frelga has it nailed. The staus quo was intolerable. What nation on earth would put up with rockets being fired on its people daily, from a neighboring territory run by a terrorist entity with openly-declared genocidal intent? Who could, ever? Israel handed Gaza over, complete, pulled out its troops, pulled out its settlers- and got the election of Hamas and unbroken rocket attacks (now with long-range Grads courtesy of Iran).

Hamas has declared unending war on all Jews, and they have been as good as their word. But they are far worse than merely a committed enemy: they are sick, twisted, evil. Lord M has given us from time to time excerpts from the way they 'educate' their children, and their vile brainwashing succeeds:Link. They just this week re-instituded the whole Sharia panoply of stoning, amputation, beheading; and this on top of their declared policy of placing their missile launch sites, their munitions stores, their headquarters in and under schools, hospitals, mosques, and civilian residences- and then gloat about how any Israeli action will produce 'martyrs!'

A look into the Satanic mind of Hamas' chief cleric (some 'man of God!):
Link.

Some ideologies must never be permitted to attain or retain power. Certainly not the heirs of Hitler- and that's not mere rhetorical flourish, but history: Link

Even HuffPo, mirabile dictu, gets it: Link----------------------------------

I will say that air strikes, even with PGM, are a blunt instrument, precisely because it's almost impossible not to harm the innocent. Boots on the ground, loath as many politicians are to send them, are the only way to operate with sufficiently fine discrimination.

SF, I note that, speaking generally, those who shout the loudest that 'You can't achieve X militarily' are very often those who know nothing about military operations- indeed often take a perverse pride in knowing nothing.
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So, in conclusion, Prim, I would say that the violence in the Levant will never stop so long as Hamas rules Gaza, or wields any power: and they cannot be negotiated with, cannot be reasoned with, cannot be dissuaded, cannot be dterred, 'love death more than you love life"--- by deduction that leaves one option. Which, fortunately, is a case of pragmatism aligning with right and justice: Hamas' leaders need to die, and they deserve to die.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

soli, with all due respect, you are only seeing part of the picture. While it is true that Israel turned over Gaza, it also sealed the borders and otherwise took actions that guaranteed that the people would remain in misery. So of course they got Hamas's election. They will never destroy Hamas militarily. All that will do will continue the cycle of violence. What they need to do is disempower Hamas. And the way to do that is to help show their Semetic neighbors that there is a better way to live than through perpetual violence.

Israel is certainly in a hard place, but the current actions are making the situation worse, not better.

[sauronsfinger]

from Solicitr

SF, I note that, speaking generally, those who shout the loudest that 'You can't achieve X militarily' are very often those who know nothing about military operations- indeed often take a perverse pride in knowing nothing.

Could you please provide solid examples of this? I lived through the Viet Nam era and remember with great clarity all of the glorious objectives that were supposed to be achieved through military operations. And they were. Problem for us was that it was the other side that achieved their objectives.

All of our military experts and their encyclopedic knowledge of military history, tactics and strategy went for naught.

When you look at people as The Other and ascribe to them demonic and satanic motives, behaviors and desires, it makes it so easy to bring the rain of death down upon them even if those being killed are only innocent women and children and the old.