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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDo you support the IDF action in Gaza?
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22 (22%) |
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78 (78%) |
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IronGate
(2,186 posts)GeorgeGist
(25,319 posts)IronGate
(2,186 posts)Countdown_3_2_1
(878 posts)You do not lob 17,000+ missiles into another country without consequences.
Further, Hamas was digging a massive series of tunnels into Israel to perpetrate the biggest terror attack ever. That had to be stopped. Each tunnel needs to be found and destroyed.
Gazans freely elected terrorists to be their leaders. Maybe that was not such a wise move.
You reap what you sow. If Hamas commits acts of war, then no one should be surprised when they find themselves in a real war.
More consequences. If you store missiles and munitions in schools or mosques, then do not be surprised when schools and mosques become military targets.
If you fire rockets from a roof of a hospital, don't be surprised when the hospital becomes a military target.
If you engage in 60 years of terrorist activities, don't be surprised when your victims have had enough and are willing to move heaven and earth to come and get you.
7962
(11,841 posts)Countdown_3_2_1
(878 posts)Response to Countdown_3_2_1 (Reply #33)
Post removed
Countdown_3_2_1
(878 posts)I will be killed? Maybe you should edit your post.
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)We destroyed Iraq for much less. Twice!
Countdown_3_2_1
(878 posts)but don't let facts get in your way...
atreides1
(16,076 posts)The U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry record contains testimony by fourteen Liberty crew members and five subject matter experts; exhibits of attack damage photographs, various messages and memorandums; and findings of fact. The testimony record reveals "a shallow investigation, plagued by myriad disagreements between the captain and his crew." As to culpability, "It was not the responsibility of the court to rule on the culpability of the attackers, and no evidence was heard from the attacking nation", the court concluded that "available evidence combines to indicate ... (that the attack was) a case of mistaken identity." Additionally, the Court found that "heroism displayed by the Commanding Officer, officers and men of the Liberty was exceptional."
The Joint Chief of Staff's Report contains findings of fact related only to communication system failures associated with the Liberty attack. It was not concerned with matters of culpability, nor does it contain statements thereof.
The CIA Memoranda consist of two documents: one dated June 13, 1967, and the other dated June 21, 1967. The June 13 memorandum is an "account of circumstances of the attack ... compiled from all available sources." The June 21 memorandum is a point-by-point analysis of Israeli inquiry findings of fact. It concludes: "The attack was not made in malice toward the U.S. and was by mistake, but the failure of the IDF Headquarters and the attacking aircraft to identify the Liberty and the subsequent attack by torpedo boats were both incongruous and indicative of gross negligence."
The Clark Clifford Report consists of a review of "all available information on the subject" and "deals with the question of Israeli culpability", according to its transmittal memorandum. The report concludes: "The unprovoked attack on the Liberty constitutes a flagrant act of gross negligence for which the Israeli Government should be held completely responsible, and the Israeli military personnel involved should be punished."
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee Testimony contains, as an aside matter during hearings concerning a foreign aid authorization bill, questions and statements from several senators and responses from then Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, about the Liberty attack. For the most part, the senators were dismayed about the attack, as expressed by Senator Bourke B. Hickenlooper: "From what I have read I can't tolerate for one minute that this [attack] was an accident." Also, there was concern about obtaining more information about the attack, as expressed by Committee chairman J. William Fulbright: "We asked for [the attack investigation report] about two weeks ago and have not received it yet from Secretary Rusk. ... By the time we get to it we will be on some other subject." Secretary McNamara promised fast delivery of the investigation report ("... you will have it in four hours." , and concluded his remarks by saying: "I simply want to emphasize that the investigative report does not show any evidence of a conscious intent to attack a U.S. vessel."
The House Armed Services Committee investigation report is titled, "Review of Department of Defense Worldwide Communications". It was not an investigation focused on the Liberty attack; although, the committee's report contains a section that describes communications flow involved with the Liberty incident.
The NSA History Report is, as its name connotes, a historical report that cited the U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry record, various military and government messages and memorandum, and personal interviews for its content. The report ends with a section entitled, "Unanswered Questions", and provides no conclusion regarding culpability.
The Liberty Veterans Association (composed of veterans from the ship) states that U.S. congressional investigations and other U.S. investigations were not actually investigations into the attack, but rather reports using evidence only from the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry, or investigations unrelated to culpability that involved issues such as communications. In their view, the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry is the only actual investigation on the incident to date. They say it was hastily conducted, in only 10 days, even though the courts president, Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd, said that it would take six months to conduct properly. The inquiry's terms of reference were limited to whether any shortcomings on the part of the Liberty's crew had contributed to the injuries and deaths that resulted from the attack. According to the Navy Court of Inquiry's record of proceedings, four days were spent hearing testimony: two days for fourteen survivors of the attack and several U.S. Navy expert witnesses, and two partial days for two expert U.S. Navy witnesses. No testimony was heard from Israeli personnel involved.
The National Archives in College Park, Maryland includes in its files on casualties from the Liberty copies of the original telegrams the Navy sent out to family members. The telegrams called the attack accidental. The telegrams were sent out June 9, the day before the Navy Court of Inquiry convened.
Response to atreides1 (Reply #54)
Post removed
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)Help me out on this I can't remember, did we apologize to Israel for having our ship in their territorial waters? Oh wait, the Liberty was in International waters, there goes that excuse.
7962
(11,841 posts)leftynyc
(26,060 posts)on stormfront and other right wing lunatic sites. How lovely to find it among the left - using a 50 year old incident (that has been determined to be an accident numerous times) to try and make a point about Israel today. Maybe the political spectrum really is a circle.
7962
(11,841 posts)who also mentioned stormfront nonsense.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)for wanting to hide the fact they're using the same propaganda that white supremacists use. The incident was investigated numerous times and found to be a tragic accident each time. Those are the facts.
RandiFan1290
(6,229 posts)You mean we are not allowed to call people names and accuse them of being white supremacists?
7962
(11,841 posts)Same with Germany. Even Vietnam would probably welcome us these days. Get over it.
2banon
(7,321 posts)supreme hubris.
7962
(11,841 posts)and meet their former enemy. Because THEY got over it. It was in the past and it had been dealt with. You choose to bring up an incident from nearly 50 yrs ago to tar and feather an entire country. But you have no problem backing those who still teach their children to kill the Jews? "Supreme hubris"? Look in the mirror.
you're engaged in complete denial of the atrocities perpetrated on the Palestinians that has continued to this very moment. but go on... keep that wool draped over your eyes so that you never have to see the truth.. and feel comforted that at least the Neo-Cons in this country agree with you, along with the support from extreme right wing Christians Zionists from all over the Southern States (who are also deeply racists and anti-semites) because in order for the Second Coming of Jesus to happen, all of the Jews "scattered throughout the world must be returned to Israel. These are Christians who actually hate Jews because the Jews after all persecuted Jesus, their God.
Now... You "get over it".
7962
(11,841 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)Netanyahu decided to use a very tragic incident to blame Hamas for and attack Gaza AGAIN.
You don't get to kill thousands of innocent people, including little children and expect the world not to turn against you and demand accountability and justice for the innocent victims of yet another illegal and immoral assault on innocent people.
7962
(11,841 posts)Response to Countdown_3_2_1 (Reply #33)
ann--- This message was self-deleted by its author.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)That condition was that of a targeted ground assault moving against Hamas. After all, this is the only way for israel to meet its stated goal of "taking out" hamas, by going on the ground and precisely killing / capturing the people firing the rockets, and confiscating the weapons.
Well, Israel has the "ground assault" part, but is still missing the "targeted" and "precise" parts. My confidence that Israel using ground forces would result in a much lower civilian death rate has been proven wrong.
So no, I don't.
kentuck
(111,079 posts)for discriminately firing drone missiles at "precise" targets?
7962
(11,841 posts)Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)I also believe that because of that it creates far more terrorists than it may dispatch, so it is tactically stupid as well.
hlthe2b
(102,231 posts)Self defense is one thing that THIS is clearly NOT.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)As my comments during the period with missile strikes before the ground invasion noted. I said that instead of missiles, they needed to be moving in with militarized swat teams and snipers, and ONLY targeting the militants firing rockets, not destroying neighbourhoods and killing civilians. My low expectations as to how they would actually go about things were sadly the reality.
Of course, the more info that's come out, the more I'm thinking that prior to Israeli assaults, Hamas was actually playing it straight, and trying to convert over mainly to a political force in a unity government, and that Netanyahu and the IDF used attacks by non-Hamas militants as an excuse to try and break the fledgeling unity government apart before actual peace could be a result, and drive Hamas back into exactly the sort of stupid and violent ways they held to in prior years, so that the hard right in the Israeli government could keep power as a 'counterbalance'.
TwilightGardener
(46,416 posts)rocket attacks on cities and airports. But the underlying issues can't and won't be resolved this way, and the destruction and bloodshed is appalling.
kentuck
(111,079 posts)I guess they were shooting at Israeli war ships?
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)(apart from the fact that once in blue moon, they actually do hit someone) is that they give cover for the false equivalency that RW Israelis use to pretend that all of the things listed above are merely 'defense'.
Without the rockets, Palestinians could have gone the Gandhi route and gotten the world entirely on their side against the various forms of continued oppression long ago.
cascadiance
(19,537 posts)... as it would be swept under the rug as it has been in so many other countries where similar abuse is unchallenged.
I think part of the challenge is ours, in that we break up the corporate media that funnels CRAP to us about what is happening there, and which wouldn't cover things if Israel were using our weaponry, etc. to subjugate Palestinian slaves with no resistance.
If we can demand a more competitive media landscape where the voices of all sides could be heard more fairly, and we could hear more from Israeli dissenters of Netanyahu, and give more voice to peaceful protests by Palestinians, then there might be more incentive for more Israelis to join their dissenters, and more Palestinians to join in a more "Gandhi"-like resistance, and perhaps we could start bringing down our military industrial complex so that it doesn't contribute to the 1%er elites control of our country and through it a large part of the world. Until we achieve that, we'll have to see that the lack of that kind of media landscape is what contributes to the violence in this area as it is what brings in attention to both sides and the bucks that the corporate media and the military establishment wants for themselves.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)'If it bleeds, it leads' is the established media mantra, and a couple million slowly starving Palestinians isn't nearly as 'coverage-worthy' as missiles and rockets going back and forth.
I think the internet is a big reason as to why we're getting any reporting that's sympathetic to the people dying at all. While the US government and the big media concerns have been planted about as firmly as possible in the 'Israel can do no wrong' camp for half a century, younger people online are far more skeptical of simply being handed a narrative, and have noticed who keeps losing land, who keeps dying, whose houses, schools, and hospitals keep getting destroyed. The Israeli RWers are every bit as bad as the old Cold Warriors of US politics, for whom violence is the solution to every problem.
cascadiance
(19,537 posts)The corporatists want to make money however they can and control the masses to do their bidding. The internet has spawned the Arab Spring and earlier in Iran too, and resistance in other parts like those in Taksim Square in Turkey as well (who on private message boards of those of us who spent our childhoods there I find interesting that the resistance in Turkey has support from both the left and right side of the aisle here, which gives me hope of global rejection of violence and authoritarian rule no matter how it brands itself someday).
If the internet goes down the tubes with this corporatist bullshit agenda, I really hope that things don't follow the Palestinian and French Revolution paths to violence when people start to lose hope.
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)Had the Palestinians been willing to lose the number of lives by protesting Israel's occupation in a peaceful way, they would have achieved far more progress. Make no mistake, the Israeli's would have killed a number of protestors under various excuses. They want to keep the land. The difference is that without the cover of Palestinian "terrorism", the world would have reacted decisively against Israel.
Tetris_Iguana
(501 posts)And bringing Palestinians full equality under Israeli law.
Iggo
(47,550 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)moondust
(19,972 posts)Taking out the tunnels used to terrorize Israel seems like a good idea, but the force being used to do that "appears" excessive. I have no way of knowing how many tunnel entrances were hidden in the basements of those bombed out buildings or which buildings are being used to stockpile Hamas rockets.
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)destroying entire neighbourhoods and killing a thousand people only 'appears' excessive?
If these tunnels are 'used to terrorize Israel', then they obviously cross under the border and into Israel. So why aren't the Israelis simply destroying the tunnels either inside Israel or inside the buffer zone, instead of wiping out huge chunks of Gaza?
Caretha
(2,737 posts)Others are running around waving their arms and shouting.....whoa is poor Israel.
In my not so humble opinion - it is time for the US piggy bank to dry up and it is time to apply some austerity to those being so careless by firing million dollar missiles into Gaza.
I think we need to "Greek" them...oh for about 70 years.
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)GeorgeGist
(25,319 posts)Location. Location. Location.
Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)Names I would have expected to see not showing up. I'm guessing more than one is on timeout, as I see that shira is.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)Maybe he/she merely decided to take a break from DU while running out the clock.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)kentuck
(111,079 posts)WatermelonRat
(340 posts)Do I support the basic premise of Israel targeting tunnels, rockets, and hamas facilities? Yes.
madokie
(51,076 posts)avebury
(10,952 posts)Raid on Entebbe. After his death his family released a book (The Letters of of Jonathan Netanyahu: The Commander of the Entebbe Rescue Force). The letters were written over a long period of time and show how he changed due to his experiences. He came to realize that perpetual war was not the path that Israel should follow. It is interesting to contemplate what role he would have played had he not died at Entebbe.
The problem with Israelis is their instance in setting up settlements where they have no right to be and to just take over the land. I just don't have the sympathy anymore that I used to have for Israel. They have become too much like those who suppressed them long ago.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)people of both heritages that simply wanted to live, love their families and die in old age with dignity as 99% of all people do. The terrorists groups IDF and Hamas are the enemies of the actual people that I support.
They kill these people and their children without regard for human life, they are psychopaths. Of the two groups of psychopaths the IDF is by far the serial killer responsible for the most amount of the blood shed of children and innocent working people trying to raise them, but they are equal in their evil intent.
Supporting the IDF at this point is akin to supporting the Bush murderers. I am completely against them, they should listen to their own citizens that have had enough of heartless bloodshed committed in their names and who have been protesting.
I fear however that the citizen's protestations will be ignored just as ours were when we protested the Bush serial killers.
With all of that said, starving people and keeping them in concentration camps creates psychopathic killers like those found in Hamas, so the far right in Israel have created their own enemies for a few decades now, regardless of the past, the future being created now will only lead to even more serial killers and even more bloodshed. They must be stopped because like all psychopaths they will not stop of their own accord.
I have written all of my representatives including the president voicing the opinion to stop funding terrorists and giving them weapons regarding this issue, but AIPAC has the money to be heard and we do not, so it is futile and only helpful to my own conscience to do so, I realize that, but as long as they continue to pretend this is a representative Democracy in the form of a Republic (which it no longer is), I will write such letters.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)It's required by law over there.
Dragonfli
(10,622 posts)If you are referring to mandatory service well, sounds like they are forcing at least some citizens that would rather not to partake in slaughter, very bad law if you ask me.
When I say the people, I mean just that, those that live, love and work and are separate individual beings. I really don't give a shit if some dictatorial presence tries to claim them in the name of whatever empire they are trying to form, people are people, it is people that I care about.
Those that would force them to do evil are simply that, evil. I refuse to consider the people the same as the evil that would own them as subjects, and that goes for both ethnicities, contrary to the beliefs of some, Palestinians are human beings as well - and not all, or even most are guilty of the crimes of Hamas, just as not all or even most Israelis would wish the death of innocents as does the government.
Sorry if that offends you, but I stand by my post, I stand with the people, actual human beings with hearts and souls and individual identities all their own that work, love, have children, and simply wish to live. That remains who I am.
I really don't care if you like it or not, not in the slightest.
intaglio
(8,170 posts)Haredi yeshiva students are exempt or refuse to comply and are left unprosecuted
totodeinhere
(13,058 posts)Of course this is not representative of the American people overall who generally support Israel in every recent poll I have seen.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)for being so much better informed than the MSM-impaired majority of the American public. Where, however, at least four out of ten find the Israeli response to be disproportionate. Progress is slowly being made. As for the rest of the world...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/24/world/middleeast/as-much-of-the-world-frowns-on-israel-americans-hold-out-support.html
stranger81
(2,345 posts)have absolutely ZERO representation in our government.
None.
hlthe2b
(102,231 posts)http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.607224
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)off their lazy asses to the voting booth in November, you may be in business.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)It is a war crime.
TheKentuckian
(25,023 posts)Do I support the current execution and/or the plan to do so? I don't know because I don't have the data. Is this the best minimization of civilian death and harm while still carrying out the mission? I don't know but considering the conditions it is plausible we are in the neighborhood, the number certainly do not tell a tale of wanton disregard when we are talking about the population concentration and how targets are dispersed.
What would be the proper number of casualties for the required operation? What is that number based on? Are there comparable past operation under similar conditions that were more efficient?
kentuck
(111,079 posts)..what is the mission?
Is it about defending their homeland or is it about capturing natural resources? I'm not sure.
hack89
(39,171 posts)kentuck
(111,079 posts)...might be worth something?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/is-israels-operation-protective-edge-really-about-natural-gas/5393103
WatermelonRat
(340 posts)the several billion dollars this war is set to cost them.
bluedigger
(17,086 posts)No war has a positive balance sheet when the butcher's bill is paid in full.
2banon
(7,321 posts)Israel's war funding is outsourced to the U.S. taxpayers as well as the EU interesting enough.
hack89
(39,171 posts)Yes, there is a gas field off Gaza. What the article ignores are the several other gas fields that are much much larger to the north in Israeli territorial waters. Israel does not need the Gaza fields to be energy self sufficient.
kentuck
(111,079 posts)...that Hamas could buy if they were allowed to "fish" in their own water...
11 Bravo
(23,926 posts)lexington filly
(239 posts)WWII history and felt deep compassion. But that has melted away in past decades as they evolved from a global victim to a world class victimizer of the Palestinians. They pretend they're talking peace with the Palestinians to delay and delay and give themselves time to take over more and more of Palestinian land and resources and water. They squeeze them like cattle into pens with no place to go. It's laughable when Israel claims they use their own people as human shields. It's wall to wall people there. They've forced almost 2 million people into an area the size of Detroit! They are forced to live elbow to elbow by Israel. Little kids can't even play on the beach without being taken out by a weapon of mass destruction.
Israel collectively punishes Palestinians whenever anything happens like when the 3 teens were killed, they swept into Palestinian territory like the hand of God and picked up hundreds of Palestinian men, many that had been recently released due to negotiations. Now we learn, it wasn't a Hamas op at all. But that's how vulnerable these impoverished by Israel people are today. Israel claims anything they want and does anything they want. So they are being squeezed to death and fight back feebly for one last gasp of breath and Israel says, "We have to defend ourselves." Really! Israel has destroyed its own moral compass with its obsession to destroy the Palestinians people.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)... would have preferred something much stronger.
My opinion of Israel has been changed, and not for the better.
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)That coalition will collapse and be replaced by something better, eventually. Here's wishing it a speedy exit!
mulsh
(2,959 posts)of helpless Palestinians. Throwing rocks and launching unguided mortar and rockets is now where in the same league as using the finest ballistic systems Israeli and American weapon designers can make.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)This is an analysis digging down into the numbers from the latest Gallup poll, at
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/israels-actions-unjustified.html
It's no surprise given the audacity of the IDF's crimes against humanity in Gaza, and the transparently lame justifications served up by the pro-Israeli PR. Which, as we're learning in this thread, has also not worked on Democratic Underground, despite the flood of posts by the relatively small but highly vocal group who support of the Israeli aggression against the occupied people of Gaza.
Now we're also seeing what the true majority opinion on this site is, although you'd never be able to tell from just reading threads, due to how prolific a handful of IDF supporters are.
Check out the link for further breakdowns - opinion among U.S. women is 44 to 33 percent against the Israeli action, says Gallup! Among non-Whites, it's running 2 to 1 against.
This is almost parallel to the general right/left divide, wherein the old white men still predominate and keep the Tea Party politics going, but everyone else is against that.
Israels actions unjustified in eyes of women, non-whites, Dems, indys, and those under 50 Gallup
http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/israels-actions-unjustified.html
BlindTiresias
(1,563 posts)The paradigm is shifting and all of those who have defended the Israeli right wing in this event are going to carry the same shame that apartheid supporters have.
Here is a message to all progressives who cynically support Israel in the hopes of appearing to be a Very Serious Person: Times are changing and you will become a laughing stock at best if you continue supporting the unsupportable.
Crunchy Frog
(26,579 posts)elias49
(4,259 posts)with a picture - about Israelis sitting on a hillside on folding chairs and with picnic baskets watching "rockets" from Gaza being shot down by the Iron Dome (or falling uselessly miles from any target). It was like a family outing to watch fireworks on the Fourth of July here in the US. Made me think about how scary it must be for those poor people... They must think it's a festival. Pitiful.
joshcryer
(62,270 posts)When Hamas starts the rain of rockets just let them expend it. Most people don't even live where they can hit. Evacuate the remaining people.
Once Hamas expends it the people there will see that it was all a waste, millions spent smuggling in Iranian rockets that don't do anything.
Hamas is getting good PR from Israel's actions.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)How many times are we going to hear that bullshit?
"When Hamas starts..." is pure propaganda.
The Israelis, the occupying force already in violation of international law through its inhumane treatment of the people imprisoned in Gaza, initiated the aggression for domestic political reasons (as a collective punishment for a crime not related to anyone in Gaza) and to block the Palestinian unity deal. The only "rain" of munitions comes from them.
joshcryer
(62,270 posts)JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)It's this "rain" phrase that's the propaganda phrase. The only "rain" is from the IDF. In response - in response - there has been this pathetic little trickle of attempted junk rockets fired out of Gaza.
The rocket fire from Gaza, wrong as it is, is nothing other than a response to the aggression initiated by the Israelis, who violated the two-year cease-fire in a deliberate attack designed as a collective punishment for a crime that didn't even happen in Gaza and had nothing to do with Hamas.
Is that clear enough, or are you going to do another non-sequitur?
joshcryer
(62,270 posts)A 50 fold increase from the "trickle" of 2 rockets a day is a "rain."
I agree that they're junk rockets which is why I say that the reaction is disproportionate. Let them run out of rockets, it is only a matter of time. So far only one Israeli citizen has died from the barrage, rain, large, whatever, 100 rockets a day. Let it go on for weeks, until Hamas runs out, maybe you lose ten Israeli citizens at most. Then what? What is Hamas going to do then?
The reason Israel doesn't do it is because it needs a pretext to take out the tunnels, so at the height of the rocket barrage, oh sorry, you don't like that, should I say "little trickle of attempted junk rockets made in Iran which is a 50 fold increase on regular rocket launches."
Little trickle. What a joke. 100 a day is not a little trickle. That's 100 alarms every day. That's 1 every 15 minutes on average. People in areas where the rockets fall down suffer from PTSD having to run to bomb shelters every 15 minutes.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)is that they are using this (weak) defensive response from Hamas as the retroactive pretext for the IDF's own attack. Tunnels, schmunnels, none of this is a threat to Israel. They're playing a strategy to crush Palestinian hopes over the long term.
The IDF initiated the offensive on Gaza, after a two-year ceasefire and in the absence of any rain, trickle, barrage, or salvo of rockets from Gaza. The government had decided to pursue this aggression following the crime against the settler children in the West Bank (not by Hamas, not in Gaza, not by anything other than a "lone cell" and just as a unity deal had been struck between Hamas and the P.A. The government's actions are for domestic political consumption and out of long-term calculations of the power constellation. This aggression has never had anything to do with Hamas's rockets, or its supposed tunnels. These are the excuses for consumption among true believers and low-information voters in the U.S., and they wear thin, and I tire of hearing nonsense about the "rain of rockets" when Israel chose to initiate this massacre which has laid waste to large carpets of residential areas without regard for the civilians.
joshcryer
(62,270 posts)IDF did not initiate an offensive, Hamas started shooting rockets at 100 a day, only after that did the IDF respond.
Nothing to do with the rockets. It's so hard to take you seriously or consider you worth responding to when you say stupid shit like that.
Nevernose
(13,081 posts)However, seeing as how almost no Israeli citizens have been killed or injured by those rockets, in the end Israel will end up losing much more than they could ever possibly gain. Just because they have e right, doesn't make it right.
In the end, what there is is two governments -- Israel and Hamas -- both with legitimate claims, who are too short-sighted and stubborn to see past "losing face" to work out any sort of peaceful solution. Neither of these governments give a single shit about the civilians in either country, including their own. Otherwise Hamas wouldn't put rocket launchers in schools and Israel would stop shooting at schools.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Israel initiated this aggression.
"Gazans have the right to retaliate against platforms used to attack them."
You'll never hear that.
"but... but... the rockets are random! The Israelis target forces only."
Total bullshit, as the targeting of hospitals, schools, whole neighborhoods and boys playing soccer on broad beach have repeatedly demonstrated.
This is a one-sided massacre initiated by IDF, with the Israelis using the pathetic rocket fire from Gaza in response as a retroactive excuse.
stranger81
(2,345 posts)This "right to defend" canard really amounts to assertion of an offensive right, when viewed in context.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)The IDF broke the 2012 ceasefire and initiated the aggression in Gaza. The IDF is the aggressor. The Gazan rockets are a weak attempt at firing back (and stupid, I might add).
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)HERVEPA
(6,107 posts).
sendero
(28,552 posts)... and they havent' been for a decade or two. A pox on both their houses. And BTW, they are not our "friend in the Middle East". They are no one's friend and if it were up to me they wouldn't see a dime of US tax money, not a cent.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)50 support, 250 do not support.
5:1 against the IDF action in Gaza.