Israel invaded

[youngsyr]

isaldiri said:

PRTVR said:

skwdenyer said:

In international relations, a proportionate response is usually the order of the day. Had Israel perpetrated some sort of police action in response to the attack and kidnapping, there would have been no shortage of support.

The Israelis are dealing with a terrorist organisation that's stated aim is the eradication of the Israelis, they took hostages, they do not conform to any civilised code, they use civilians as human shields, how do you expect them to react ?

Label all civilians as potential hamas combatants/supporters so it doesn't matter how many are killed?

Cry me a river. Elect a genocidal death cult as your government, take the consequences.

They've had 17 years to do something about Hamas (whom they elected in the first place), they stood by and watched and in the majority supported them.

Now Israel is doing something about them.

[JJJ.]

PRTVR said:

The Israelis are dealing with a terrorist organisation that's stated aim is the eradication of the Israelis, they took hostages, they do not conform to any civilised code, they use civilians as human shields, how do you expect them to react ?

Ha,ha. Many would consider the Israeli army (Defence force my ass) as a terrorist organisation with a stated aim to eradicate Palestinians. Of course that's not news, anyone with a level head knows it's the primary aim of the Israeli state.

[youngsyr]

JJJ. said:

PRTVR said:

The Israelis are dealing with a terrorist organisation that's stated aim is the eradication of the Israelis, they took hostages, they do not conform to any civilised code, they use civilians as human shields, how do you expect them to react ?

Ha,ha. Many would consider the Israeli army (Defence force my ass) as a terrorist organisation with a stated aim to eradicate Palestinians. Of course that's not news, anyone with a level head knows it's the primary aim of the Israeli state.

And yet it's taken them 5 months to kill 30,000 people in one of the most densely populated parts of the world, meanwhile Hamas killed over 1,000 in a single day, with vastly inferior military capability.

Pretty clear who is targetting civilians here.

Edited by youngsyr on Wednesday 27th March 13:42

[skwdenyer]

PRTVR said:

skwdenyer said:

In international relations, a proportionate response is usually the order of the day. Had Israel perpetrated some sort of police action in response to the attack and kidnapping, there would have been no shortage of support.

The Israelis are dealing with a terrorist organisation that's stated aim is the eradication of the Israelis, they took hostages, they do not conform to any civilised code, they use civilians as human shields, how do you expect them to react ?

Perhaps if the Israelis hadn’t helped fund them in the first place in a deliberate attempt to destabilise Palestinian unity? That would have been a start And perhaps if they hadn’t seemingly deliberately turned a blind eye to their own troops witnessing the dress rehearsals for the October attack? There is a great deal more here than some seem to grasp.

To pretend Israel is innocent in the rise, and military capabilities, of Hamas is spectacularly naive.

Meanwhile, when talking of eradication, forget not that the whole river-to-the-sea messaging started off as the stated ambition of Netanyahu’s Likud party. The destruction of Gaza was literally their electoral platform.

[youngsyr]

You seemed to have missed my question to you above...

youngsyr said:

skwdenyer said:

In international relations, a proportionate response is usually the order of the day. Had Israel perpetrated some sort of police action in response to the attack and kidnapping, there would have been no shortage of support.

"...some sort of police action" - what exactly does that mean?

You're going to have to spell it out to me because to me that sounds like you're waiving a magic wand and suddenly the hostages are returned and there's everlasting peace in the Middle East.

[skwdenyer]

youngsyr said:

You seemed to have missed my question to you above...

youngsyr said:

skwdenyer said:

In international relations, a proportionate response is usually the order of the day. Had Israel perpetrated some sort of police action in response to the attack and kidnapping, there would have been no shortage of support.

"...some sort of police action" - what exactly does that mean?

You're going to have to spell it out to me because to me that sounds like you're waiving a magic wand and suddenly the hostages are returned and there's everlasting peace in the Middle East.

You can go door to door. Or you can bomb the hell out of everything. The uncontested images coming out of Gaza suggest the latter.

The former would arguably be morally and legally justifiable. The letter is revenge, a tactic Israel is well-versed in (bulldozing civilian homes as punishment, for instance).

Much as I dislike the UK-US invasion of Afghanistan, if we’d carpet-bombed every village, town or city containing a Taliban suspect, do you think we’d have been justified?

[youngsyr]

skwdenyer said:

youngsyr said:

You seemed to have missed my question to you above...

youngsyr said:

skwdenyer said:

In international relations, a proportionate response is usually the order of the day. Had Israel perpetrated some sort of police action in response to the attack and kidnapping, there would have been no shortage of support.

"...some sort of police action" - what exactly does that mean?

You're going to have to spell it out to me because to me that sounds like you're waiving a magic wand and suddenly the hostages are returned and there's everlasting peace in the Middle East.

You can go door to door. Or you can bomb the hell out of everything. The uncontested images coming out of Gaza suggest the latter.

The former would arguably be morally and legally justifiable. The letter is revenge, a tactic Israel is well-versed in (bulldozing civilian homes as punishment, for instance).

Much as I dislike the UK-US invasion of Afghanistan, if we’d carpet-bombed every village, town or city containing a Taliban suspect, do you think we’d have been justified?

So your solution is to go and knock on each door one by one and hope that Hamas just come out with their hands up???


Seriously?

[964Cup]

skwdenyer said:

You can go door to door. Or you can bomb the hell out of everything. The uncontested images coming out of Gaza suggest the latter.

The former would arguably be morally and legally justifiable. The letter is revenge, a tactic Israel is well-versed in (bulldozing civilian homes as punishment, for instance).

Much as I dislike the UK-US invasion of Afghanistan, if we’d carpet-bombed every village, town or city containing a Taliban suspect, do you think we’d have been justified?

While I'm not actually a wholehearted supporter of the approach taken by Israel, it's clear that any door-to-door exercise would have resulted in enormous IDF casualties. Imagine that fanatical Welsh nationalists had turned Wales into a fortified warren, then launched a ferocious and indiscriminate attack on Herefordshire, raping and killing 7,200 men, women and children just for the crime of being English. Would you suggest that we sent the Army (or the Police) in politely to interview residents, or would you be suggesting something a little more forceful and perhaps less discriminating? How many English soldiers (or police officers) would have to die before you changed your approach?

We (the UK) were more restrained in Northern Ireland, not that we lacked for brutality. But the IRA killed "only" around 600 civilians in almost 30 years; Hamas killed (and raped and brutalised) at least twice that number in a single day, from a population less than a fifth of our size.

[isaldiri]

skwdenyer said:

Meanwhile, when talking of eradication, forget not that the whole river-to-the-sea messaging started off as the stated ambition of Netanyahu’s Likud party. The destruction of Gaza was literally their electoral platform.

Well, to be fair, the likud election manifesto only called for israeli supremacy over all of the land from the sea to the jordan. It didn't call for the destruction of gaza or anywhere else as long as they were acknowledged as the sovereign masters of the area.....

[fizz47]

Someone who probably knows a thing or two about IDF atrocities..

Not a Palestinian spokesperson ( as genocide apologists think only Israeli lives are worth anything)

Ami Ayalon, former director of Israeli Security Agency Shin Bet was asked if you lived in Gaza or the west bank then what would you do?

https://x.com/ecomarxi/status/1767905566209327220?...

[JagLover]

skwdenyer said:

In international relations, a proportionate response is usually the order of the day. Had Israel perpetrated some sort of police action in response to the attack and kidnapping, there would have been no shortage of support.

Police action?

It was an act of war carried out by a well armed militia of around 30k. War is met with war, not be sending in Dixon of dock green to arrest the wrongdoers.

[Wilmslowboy]

Tough words from some senior UK military.

No longer just left wing councillors from some north English town.


"A group of senior military and foreign policy experts have written to the Prime Minister calling for the UK to immediately suspend arms sales to Israel.

Signatories to the letter include Brigadier John Deverell CBE, former Senior British Officer Occupied Palestinian Territories, and Major General Charles Vyvyan, former defence attaché in Washington.
The group claims the weaponry is being used in ways that violate international humanitarian law."



[source] https://www.forces.net/middle-east/former-british-...

[skwdenyer]

JagLover said:

skwdenyer said:

In international relations, a proportionate response is usually the order of the day. Had Israel perpetrated some sort of police action in response to the attack and kidnapping, there would have been no shortage of support.

Police action?

It was an act of war carried out by a well armed militia of around 30k. War is met with war, not be sending in Dixon of dock green to arrest the wrongdoers.

I replied at length to this point, but it seems to have vanished without trace.

TL;DR Israel in part created this problem by ensuring the ascendency and financing of Hamas to deliberately destabilise Palestinian attempts at a two-state solution.

Gazans are not free agents; they’re de facto Israelis. Israel cannot carpet bomb Gaza any more than the UK could carpet bomb Belfast in the hope 1:1000 were IRA members.

Police Action in this context means occupying territory to enforce order and attempt to find perpetrators, not obliterating whole cities. Going street by street. Even we did that in Afghanistan.

Israel is a modern nuclear state. It needs to act like one. Whatever the mess that existed before or after October does not provide justification for the mass destruction of Gaza or creation of a humanitarian crisis.

[julian987R]

JJJ. said:

'What's actually happening is asymmetric warfare were one side has killed 33,000 civilians, injured 72,000, displaced 1.5m etc, etc. Not forgetting hundreds killed and displaced in the West Bank.

Edited by JJJ. on Wednesday 27th March 10:30

Correct...and all down to Hamas. It aint rocket science this..

[julian987R]

julian987R said:

More than 15,000 people have died and millions more have been displaced in the brutal war which has raged in Sudan for almost a year.

Children as young as ten are being handed automatic rifles along with orders to "kill 300 fighters", reports The Telegraph.

And nearly 18 million people - of a total population of 49 million - are facing acute hunger, with many dying of starvation and unable to receive aid due to the heavy fighting.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/26576341/sudan-world...

Oh!! Hang on? This isn’t the fashionable war. The one that gets me likes in my echo chamber. Oh I see. Ok, well forgot the ‘genocide’ in Sudan then. #gazaisthenewblack

[julian987R]

dukeboy749r said:

This thread has become one of semantics.

Yes, Hammas invaded Israel - however, their forces then retreated, in short order, back into Gaza. So, incursion would be more of an apt description.

The fact that to avenge that act, Israel has killed over 30,000 people, many of them non-combatants - would, by any measure, seem like an overreaction. No?

What kind of war is based on "ok you killed X of ours so we'll kill the same amount of yours" ?!

[julian987R]

M1AGM said:

Gaza war: UN rights expert accuses Israel of acts of genocide

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68667...


Damning report.

Biased report. She has books to sell.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-pal...

[isaldiri]

skwdenyer said:

Gazans are not free agents; they’re de facto Israelis. Israel cannot carpet bomb Gaza any more than the UK could carpet bomb Belfast in the hope 1:1000 were IRA members.

Police Action in this context means occupying territory to enforce order and attempt to find perpetrators, not obliterating whole cities. Going street by street. Even we did that in Afghanistan.

Israel is a modern nuclear state. It needs to act like one. Whatever the mess that existed before or after October does not provide justification for the mass destruction of Gaza or creation of a humanitarian crisis.

I wonder how you can state that so definitively. The Israelis clearly do not regard the gazans or indeed any of the palestinians as Israelis, de facto or otherwise. As for whether they could not carpet bomb the palestinians, it clearly could happen as long as the US chose to turn a blind eye as they do in quite a lot of other places where mass killings can and do happen and let's face it, mere squeamishness and restraint on the part of the Israelis certainly isn't the constraint....

[youngsyr]

skwdenyer said:

Police Action in this context means occupying territory to enforce order and attempt to find perpetrators, not obliterating whole cities. Going street by street. Even we did that in Afghanistan.

So your answer is to follow exactly the same tactics that failed to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan?

Absolutely brilliant. Well done.

[julian987R]

skwdenyer said:

Police Action in this context means occupying territory to enforce order and attempt to find perpetrators, not obliterating whole cities

If Hamas stopped standing behind Palestinians then sure, that could work.