Gaza militants launch Qassams into southern Israel

[oberliner]

Two Qassam rockets struck the western Negev late Saturday night, triggering alarms in the southern town of Sderot after a two-week lull. No injuries were reported,

Security forces are still searching for the site of the rockets' explosion.

The launches come two weeks after two Katyusha rockets launched from Lebanese territory slammed into the northern Galilee.

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1115690.html

[DesertFlower]

1. Jesus H. Christ. nt

[BunkerHill24]

2. Hmmm! I believe Israel has an answer:

"Kill 'Em All".....Naturally!

[proteus_lives]

11. It's so weird how people think Israel should just like themselves be attacked.

Why do you Israel-haters think that they shouldn't respond when attacked?

[Violet_Crumble]

12. That's not what the poster said, though...

Here's what I'll say. I know how you like there to be balance in these threads and all, so it should sound very familiar to you ;)

I wonder if Israel makes the connection between A and B.
Israel doesn't want peace. They're quite willingly to allow Sderot to suffer to advance their agenda.



Also why do you call people 'Israel-haters' when people dare to criticise Israel? Don't you think that's just a bit immature?

[ProgressiveProfessor]

18. So people should leave Sderot since they might get shelled due to Israel's national

policies toward Gaza?

[Violet_Crumble]

24. You missed the point again....

My opening 'this should sound familiar to you' should have tipped you off that I was making a point about what the same poster had said in a different thread....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=287627&mesg_id=287645

[BunkerHill24]

3. If you would want to report all the the dead Israelis ....

You would lose a count on all the dead Palestinians on your daily spreadsheet.

[Chulanowa]

4. Alternate headline: "Palestinians still have shitty aim, declare ballistics experts"

[Ozymanithrax]

5. It isn't the aim...

They are using unguided rockets designed to use in Barrage attacks. But they only shoot one at a time instead of 50. Their chances of hitting anything are abysmal. Their ability to keep people terrified is very very good. Each shot is a public relations boost with the people of the Gaza living in miserable conditions. When you add that you can make them from sewer pipe and stuff that is just laying around the weapon fits its role on the battlefield.

[Chulanowa]

6. Then why does the press and Israeli government need to whack the drums so hard?

My understanding is, after all this time, most Israelis are kind of jaded about it, kind of take it as a given that somewhere, a rocket's going to fuck up a nice mural or something. Sort of like how people in Belfast got after a while.

It's the print and politicians drumming up all the terror they can squeeze out of it. :shrug:

Not that that's a point in the Palestinian's favor. I mean if you're going to toss cash into the black market, at least buy something that isn't an NRA party favor.

[Ozymanithrax]

7. The idea that at any second a quassam rocket will fall out of the sky...

and turn your children into salsa tends to piss people off.

But, the folk of the Gaza strip feel the same way when Israel goes hunting and blows us cars and trucks full of Hamas operatives on busy streets.

Hamas, with care, could fire those rockets only at military facilities, including Israel's nuclear reactor, which is a military facility. They can shoot at IDF soldiers and facilities every day, stack their bodies up like cord wood, and that is a legal act of war. But, the way to destroy a peoples will to fight, which is the only way to win a war, is to keep the citizenry terrified. It is the decision of Hamas and Hezbollah that civilians are legal targets. To those organizations, there are no civilians.

Israel in the past has played the game a little better. They shoot at one legal military target it's OK, even if you kill 20 civilians. That is legal under the articles of war. But now that they have brought in warrior rabbi's, everyone over there is bat shit crazy, killing people for God over a piece of dirt.

This will end badly unless somebody pulls a little sanity out of their ass.

[Kurska]

8. Isn't trying to "aim" a quassam like trying to "aim" a bottle rocket?

Which is exactly why they are irresponsible weapons to use, they aren't just not making a distinction between Military and civilian targets, the weapons they are using are incapable of doing that because of how inaccurate they are.

It isn't like Hamas doesn't aim Mortars at civilian targets too, but thats beyond the point.

[Ozymanithrax]

9. No, it is like aiming a mortar.

They are ballistic weapons. You would fire one rocket, see where it lands, and then adjust your platform to get closer to your target. A good crew, after the third rocket fired from the same platform at the same place could get close to a target, especially if you fire in a barrage.


Theoretically, if they are made in a precision weapons factory, you can use geometry to figure out approximately where they land. If they were being used against a military force, you would fire 20 to 50 at a time with a chance that 3 or 4 of them will do some military damage.

These rockets are being made in the equivalent of a garage. If you don't pack the rocket propellant right, or you use a different stock for the rocket, it will fly to far or fall short. These crews are not trained to military precision, they just aim them at a population center and pray they hit something. That is what makes them weapons of terror and a using them a war crime, and the UN committee actually agreed with that assessment.

[Kurska]

10. Interesting, I feel more educated on the subject.

Thanks for typing all that out to explain it, very decent read.

[BunkerHill24]

13. You wrote:

"That is what makes them weapons of terror and a using them a war crime, and the UN committee actually agreed with that assessment."


The terror is all about thirty five (35) freaking long years of occupation.....

[Vegasaurus]

14. Terror will continue, as long as Israel exists

Terror is not now, and never has been, about "occupation" (35 years?).

[Ozymanithrax]

16. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is about the occupaton...

It is time it ended. Two states is the solution.

But if you are talking, generally, about the animosity between Jews and non-Jews, no one has the power to end that. It is a hate inextricably linked to Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. It is a hate you find at the borders between religions, where they rub up against each other. Sacred terror is being committed by Sikhs, Buddhists, and most other major religions in one place or another. It appears to me that jealous humans can not share a beneficent Godhead.

[oberliner]

17. What about the time when the West Bank was not occupied by Israel?

Wasn't there still an I/P conflict going on in, say, 1965?

[Chulanowa]

21. No, there was an Arab-Israeli conflict going on in 1965

Surprisingly, the Palestinians weren't too deeply involved in the conflict despite being hte basis of it, until after they got ditched after the 1967 war. After all, they weren't a nation, had no money, no military. Their involvement consisted mostly of being conscripted by the Jordanians.

However you might want to note that Israel has been occupying swathes of land that doesn't belong to it since 1948. I know you won't note this, but still, might want to.

[oberliner]

22. There was definitely an I/P conflict in 1965

The PLO was founded in 1964 and they drafted their National Charter that same year. I am confident that many Palestinians would take great offense to your claim that Palestinians "weren't too deeply involved" in the conflict until after 1967.

To your other point, when you talk about the "Occupation" are you not necessarily referring only to the occupation of lands captured by Israel during the 1967 war?

Can you clarify which lands you consider to be occupied by Israel besides the West Bank and Gaza?

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Chulanowa]

20. Something you're missing...

The "Rules of War" were invented by colonial powers who viewed wars as two foreign armies beating the crap out of each other in some wilderness, in order to determine where a line on a map is.

That is not what this fight is. This is a colonial war. On one side you have the colonial power, determined to wrest as much as it can from the natives. On the other hand you have the natives, determined to hold onto as much as they can by whatever means are presented.The Palestinians can target the military all they want. This will not address the problem the Palestinians are facing, because it's not the military that is conquering Palestinian land - they just protect the people who are.

Sderot used to be named Najd, after all.

'Course, targeting civilians doesn't seem to be working out that well, either.

[pelsar]

15. your understanding is wrong...simple as that....

the israeli govt is not leaving the citizens of sederot as well as ashkelon etc to be randomly shot at.....and terrorized by explosions at all times of the day and night.....

It's the print and politicians drumming up all the terror they can squeeze out of it.

maybe its hamas doing that.......i mean "drumming up all the terror by shooting missiles....maybe its their responsibility, maybe they don't like have the borders open and supplies coming in via israel (and a little bit officially by egypt)....maybe they don't like NOT being in the news.....They've already proved that they infact do control the launches....

[IndianaGreen]

19. Hmmm... this didn't make the news in the American press

more of the boring tit-for-tat I/P bullshit.