Israel/Gaza

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QuartzGooner
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by QuartzGooner »

Chippy

Long reply, but this is not a "Soundbite" subject.

- Israel offered 93% of the West Bank to Arafat in 2000.
He responded by starting the Second Intifada.

- Israel gave Gaza to Hamas in 2005.
They responded by smashing the businesses we left for them, and then firing rockets.

- Netanyahu is far from fascist.
He heads Likud, which is basically the Israeli Conservative party.

There are some fascist types amongst Israeli Jews, but they are in a tiny minority and none of the political parties represent them, and that is saying something for Israel where there are many parties because of proportional representation rather than "first past the post".

- The "Goal" of Netanyahu is to damage Hamas enough to get them to stop firing rockets and building tunnels.
(In my view this is not enough).

- Hamas quite literally order civilians to stay on top of buildings where the Hamas leaders live.
Hamas also have based their HQ under Shifa hospital,
They fire from schools.
And you know what?
All those tunnels they have under Gaza, they could let civilians stay there during air raids, but they don't.
It is no "Meme" that Hamas use human shields.
This really goes on, as sick as it sounds.

Also this whole idea that Gaza is incredibly densely populated, as if no one can move an inch there?

It has one city, several towns and some villages, and lots of fields.

Gaza as a whole has 13,000 people per square mile, spread out over those types of areas.
New York City, just the city itself, by comparison has 27,000 people per square mile.

- 'Greater Israel?"
Well an Israeli state including Gaza and the West Bank is by no means Greater Israel, it is still only 22% of what the British Mandate of Palestine was.

The only Israeli politician that I am aware of who wanted a Greater Israel was Ariel Sharon who in 1982 proposed a plan called
"Great Pines" which was to conquer about 35-40% of Syria and incorporate it into Israel.
The plan was never taken on board.

The biblical borders of Israel included all of the West Bank, Gaza, a part of northern Sinai, about 15% of what is now Lebanon and about 35% of what is now Syria.

So modern Israel has massively compromised territorially, handing the Sinai back to Egypt and Gaza to Hamas.

Gazans are in the main people who moved there from Egypt...they occupy Israeli land.

Jewish law has certain "duties" that can only be carried out in what is called "The land of Israel", in the main these relate to laws about agriculture.

This land included The Northern coast of the Sinai extending about 40 miles West of Gaza, as well as Gaza and the West Bank and the Golan and the rest of the modern Israel.


No one is under illusions as to the suffering of the Gazan civilians. There is enough food in Gaza (it has a lot of agriculture), but the hospitals are in shortage of basics.
I have this morning written to Prime Minister Netanyahu asking him to drop medical supplies to Gaza.
Probably some on here will mock this, but Israel is a democracy and in a democracy you write to your elected representatives with your requests.
I also asked him to smash Hamas, once and for all.

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topgoon
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by topgoon »

This thread has got trouble written all over it for reasons that are quite obvious. Maureen has more chance of stopping being a moaning little :censored: , than there ever being any consensus between posters even gooners.

I will say this collective punishment of civilians by both sides is a war crime.

Yes Palestinians(Hamas) and Israelis are both capable of being tried for it, not just genocidal Hutus in Rwanda or Serbian fruit cakes in Belgrade. Yet to date not one has. Make of that what you will.

If I have inadvertently offended anyone by this post, then it proves my highlighted point.

Now I'm off for a quick glimpse at Cork Bazza's thread, a thread where pair of bazookas and rising rockets mean something different altogether.

arseofacrow
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by arseofacrow »

g88ner wrote:I've read most of this thread, and I'm very surprised how one sided the debate has become.

There's a lot of condemnation (and I can understand it) but not many solutions. And Quartz shouldn't have to defend every individual civilian death - and highlighting his comment about children deaths being justified was naughty and sensationalist. We all knew what he meant.

Can I ask people - mainly Chippy and a few others who are strongly against the way Israel have dealt with this - how they believe Israel should handle being repeatedly attacked by a terrorist organisation who want to destroy every last one of them?

- How should they stop the missiles? (or should they simply let Hamas fire at will?)
- should basing themselves in a civilian area make Hamas untouchable and free to keep firing missiles? (or are Israel allowed to respond?)
- Should Israel attempt to destroy the tunnels? (or leave them alone knowing full well they're being used to bring in weapons?)
I stand to be corrected but Israel already has a very sophisticated "shield" to stop most of the missiles from reaching their targets.

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northbank123
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by northbank123 »

topgoon wrote:This thread has got trouble written all over it for reasons that are quite obvious. Maureen has more chance of stopping being a moaning little :censored: , than there ever being any consensus between posters even gooners.

I will say this collective punishment of civilians by both sides is a war crime.

Yes Palestinians(Hamas) and Israelis are both capable of being tried for it, not just genocidal Hutus in Rwanda or Serbian fruit cakes in Belgrade. Yet to date not one has. Make of that what you will.

If I have inadvertently offended anyone by this post, then it proves my highlighted point.

Now I'm off for a quick glimpse at Cork Bazza's thread, a thread where pair of bazookas and rising rockets mean something different altogether.
These international criminal tribunals are crap, if you look how few (if any) tyrants have ever been brought to justice through them it's embarrassing. Their simply isn't consensus for a world court as countries large and small, rich and poor alike are reticent to agree to be bow to its rulings on a broad level. Maybe 20 years after a conflict has ended they'll spend another 2 decades prosecuting some elderly bloke who shows no repentance whatsoever.

The UN Human Rights Council has actually focused disproportionately on this conflict if you listen to the views of the last two Secretaries General. The way the 47-member council is made up means that if the African and Middle Eastern states club together (which they almost invariably do on this issue) they hold a majority, and they keep abusing this as nearly half of all UNHRC resolutions have been against Israel whilst they were far more reserved on matters in Sudan, for example. Of course underlining the fact that the UN is a political points-scoring machine rather than an effective protector of human rights.

Right, that's as much real-world application as I'm ever going to get out of studying International Human Rights Law, only took 3 years. Although Miss England was in my seminar group. Now I've bored everyone to death maybe everyone will give up and stop arguing :barscarf:

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QuartzGooner
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by QuartzGooner »

arseofacrow wrote:
I stand to be corrected but Israel already has a very sophisticated "shield" to stop most of the missiles from reaching their targets.
Many other methods used by terrorists.

There are the Iron Dome system and the Arrow system which are designed to counter incoming rockets.

Not foolproof, three Israeli civilians have died in this conflict so far from incoming rockets, plus a lot of soldiers have died from incoming mortar fire.
A number of injuries caused by falling shellcasing and shrapnel from intercepted rockets.
Injuries caused by people falling running to shelters.
Lots of property damage.
Heightened rates of depression, divorce and miscarriage in areas targeted by rockets.
And the rockets have not just been fired during this war, they are fired regularly, have been so for almost a decade with many deaths and massive disruption to life.

But there are sniper attacks, suicide bombers (over 1000 civilian deaths since 2000), infiltrations from underground tunnels, stabbing attacks, deaths from rocks thrown at moving cars, deaths by drivers swerving into oncoming traffic, deaths from bulldozer/digger drivers going on rampages....

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Henry Norris 1913
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by Henry Norris 1913 »

QuartzGooner wrote:
Henry Norris 1913 wrote:as far as I see it, Israel should not exist, and the sooner the west loses control over the "holy land" the better.
Why should Israel "Not exist?"
In short, I don't believe a country should exist based on religion. I'll be careful with what I say, as this subject has always got under my skin, but theres something about a nation enforcing mandatory military service, and exporting such a high volume of weaponry that leaves me in adifficult position to support. Not to mention the nation seems to operate on such an unbearable moral high ground.

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QuartzGooner
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by QuartzGooner »

Henry Norris 1913 wrote:
QuartzGooner wrote:
Henry Norris 1913 wrote:as far as I see it, Israel should not exist, and the sooner the west loses control over the "holy land" the better.
Why should Israel "Not exist?"
In short, I don't believe a country should exist based on religion. I'll be careful with what I say, as this subject has always got under my skin, but theres something about a nation enforcing mandatory military service, and exporting such a high volume of weaponry that leaves me in adifficult position to support. Not to mention the nation seems to operate on such an unbearable moral high ground.
Originally existed for 1370 years from 1300 BCE to 70 CE.
So Israel was founded about 2200 years before England was.

Tiny country, only one in the world where the majority religion is Judaism, but has full freedom of religion for other faiths.
No apologies from me on that.
There are 50 something Muslim countries, over 100 Christian countries.

Military service is needed because of hostility from neighbours, but those who are ill and a few religion students are exempt.
Women have the option to do an alternative National Service where they work with children and teenagers in activity groups or help the elderly.

Israel has free state education, healthcare and pensions for all citizens regardless of faith (that includes almost 2M Muslims.)

Moral high ground?

Well we do have our faith which expects us to study morals and ethics and live by them.
Not everyone does, but the aim of doing so is a good thing.

As for exporting weaponry, the UK and the USA do a lot of that.
The other side is that the technology and engineering mindstate produces many other things, amongst these other things almost certainly the computer chip that you used to write what you did.

LDB
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by LDB »

Have never bought into the narrative that Israel = the baddies which seems to be the mainstream view in this country. If true, the allegation which imo most represents the lowest depths of morality is the accusation that Hamas deliberately fires its rockets from heavily populated civilian areas knowing that Israeli retaliation will kill innocents and hence be a propaganda coup.

Don't buy into the proportionality argument either. I would love to see what people who say Israel shouldn't retaliate would ask of their politicians if they were living in an area being hit by these rockets. It's easy to sit in an ivory tower and just compare casualty lists but imo Israel has a right to defend its borders.

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Chippy
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by Chippy »

It would help if it respected other people's borders.

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QuartzGooner
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by QuartzGooner »

Borders?
Israel has not even respected it's own borders!

Four disputed "Border" Areas

- Gaza is part of Israel, handed over to Hamas and look what happened.
No other nation state claims it.

- The West Bank is part of Israel, large chunks handed over to the PA and look what happened.
No other nation state claims it.

- The Golan Heights was historically part of Israel, but allocated to Syria by the British when the Ottoman Empire broke up, to appease the French.
Israel took it in 1967 after it was invaded by Syria.
Ask the Arabs of the Golan whether they would rather be living in Israel or Syria?

- The Shebaa Farms, a tiny area, has never been properly demarcated in modern maps.
Israel claims, it, Syria says it is Lebanese, Lebanese Government says it is Lebanese, Lebanese Opposition says it is not Lebanese.

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REB
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by REB »

Image



take take take since 1946.

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Simon
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by Simon »

A cursory examination of land ownership prior to 1948 shows that map is wholly incorrect. Probably why it is known as "the map that lies."

You may find the map below interesting.

Israel offered to return the territories it captured in the 1967 war in return for peace. The response was a resounding no from its neighbours who declared 'No peace with Israel at any price.'

Despite that, Israel has repeatedly given up land in return for peace and has indicated its willingness to do so again, as well as recognising the need to compensate displaced Palestinian refugees.

No such concessions from any of its Arab neighbours, let alone offers of compensation for the approx 900,000 Jews forced to flee from the Arab countries they had lived in for centuries; the forgotten refugees of this conflict.

Image

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REB
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by REB »

show me a map from 1966 and i imagine it will show the same as the 3rd picture. or show me a map before the second world war finished .

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Simon
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by Simon »

REB wrote:show me a map from 1966 and i imagine it will show the same as the 3rd picture. or show me a map before the second world war finished .
Well the whole point is that the territories acquired in '67 came about as a result of Israel defending itself in a war from its Arab neighbours who vowed to destroy it. Israel did not seek to acquire those areas and the modern day tragedy is that it's neighbours did not take up its offer from Israel to take those areas back for peace.

In this context, a pre-1948 map is hardly relevant unless you're trying to deny that Israel has a right to exist.

It was the Arab states that rejected the UN Partition Plan that would have created the first ever independent state of Palestine in 1948.

They instead chose to declare war and try and annihilate Israel and ruthlessly persecuted nearly one million Jewish citizens of Arab countries who had lived in those states in peace for centuries and were forced to flee.

Bearing in mind the above, I am happy to be shown/discuss an accurate map showing actual land ownership prior to 1948, but the ones I've seen by anti-Israel campaigners and antisemitic organisations are wholly incorrect and never take account of land ownership, the continuous Jewish presence in the area prior to independence or indeed the areas where the Jewish population was ethnically cleansed by Arab neighbours incited by antisemitic leaders such as the pro-Nazi Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, or indeed the movement of Arab citizens of the Ottoman Empire around the different countries before they became independent states.

Let alone the fact that over 70% of the originally designated area of Palestine is in modern day Jordan.

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SPUDMASHER
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Re: Israel/Gaza

Post by SPUDMASHER »

I generally don't subscribe to anything that is written in the daily mail but I spotted the article below online today and I have to say that it raises very good points.
Now, I've said before that I think the actions of Israel during this latest conflict to be shameful, and I stand by that. However, this article raises good points about how the muslim world reacts differently dependant upon the circumstances before them. It shows a one sided point of view from the mainstream muslim community that needs to be addressed.

I'd be interested to hear what others think.

"The Muslims mistakenly parading themselves as jihadists 'defending' Islam are plumbing new depths of horror in their vicious campaign to impose a 7th-century Islamic tyranny across large swathes of Iraq and Syria.
Indiscriminate slaughter, public beheadings and systematic starvation are all features of their murderous campaign, propped up by pernicious propaganda that inspires awe in their followers and fear in their victims.
What is particularly disturbing is the support given to the militants by many deluded British Muslims. It has been estimated that more than 500 young British men have gone to fight in the Syrian civil war.
Many of them are now moving across to Iraq to become volunteers in the Islamic State movement, which aims to resurrect a medieval-style caliphate in the region.

Only this week Reyaad Khan, a 20-year-old from Cardiff who is now a member of the Islamic State, declared on Twitter that he is preparing for 'martyrdom'. Khan boasted, in the macabre language of the jihadi lunatics, that he had 'executed many prisoners' and had witnessed 'the longest decapitation ever. And we made sure the knife was sharp.'
Alongside several other Britons, Khan has also appeared in an extremist recruitment video, urging other British Muslims to join their fanatical cause — though for entirely dubious theological reasons.
As well as fighting 3,000 miles away, the jihadists have made their presence felt at home. Yesterday, several brainwashed acolytes of the infamous radical Anjem Choudary handed out incendiary leaflets to shoppers in London's Oxford Street in blind support of the Islamic State, while last weekend the black flag of jihadi fundamentalism was flown on the main gate at the entrance to a housing estate in Tower Hamlets


What is terribly worrying is that, in the face of the IS atrocities, and extremist British Muslims' involvement in jihadism, mainstream Muslims here have remained largely silent at what is happening in Iraq today.
Where is the mass outcry against the systematic killing of the Iraqi Yazidis, the deadly harassment of Christians and the mindless destruction of their churches?
Where are the co-ordinated protests against the Islamic State? Where are the popular calls for an end to organised genocide by Sunni Muslim militants in Iraq?
This is pure hypocrisy and double standards from British Muslims. Only last week, more than 200,000 people — a large proportion of them British Muslims — took to the streets of London and Manchester to protest against Israel.
The Jewish state was denounced as a pariah, its military actions in Gaza condemned as disproportionate. Yet there has been nothing like this level of justified outrage over the senseless savagery of the Islamic State in Iraq.


If Muslims around the world, including those in the UK, had united against jihadism in the same way that they have done against Israel, then the extremists would be far weaker.
Indeed, idiotic British Muslims lusting after adventure might be deterred from joining IS and collaborating with injustice and immorality in the Middle East.
This deadly 'jihadism' of ill-informed religious idiots has become a terrible threat to security — both at home and in Syria and Iraq.
But I am afraid we also have to face the fact that, in the Middle East, the growing strength of IS, which so attracts these recruits, is partly the direct consequence of the ill-fated and illegal war launched by George Bush and the millionaire former Prime Minister Tony Blair. There is little doubt that Saddam Hussein was a despot, but his overthrow has plunged Iraq into long-term political and social chaos. Tragically, this is the venomous world to which so many young British Muslims are now drawn, thanks to pro-jihadi messages from some mosques, mullahs and madrassas (religious schools) which fuel and exploit their disillusion with British society.
We should be condemning with utmost urgency the atrocities committed in the name of Islam Alienated from the liberal West, partly because of their own hardline ideology, partly because of poverty and social isolation, they do not feel they have a practical stake in modern Britain. So they fall prey to the language and imagery of the radicals, which presents jihad as both the ultimate expression of true religious devotion, and a great Boy's Own adventure.
The conflict is portrayed to these deluded young men as an exciting, heroic adventure in the desert, where they can wield rifles, carry out executions and send 'selfies' back home while doing God's work.


For boys who do not wish to stack the shelves of supermarkets, or work in Primark, or study hard for higher education in accountancy or medicine, as their parents might wish, they are presented with an intoxicating romantic vision of life and death in the arid landscape of Mesopotamia.
A second, potent part of the jihadi appeal is the promise of sex. Here is one of the ugly hypocrisies of fundamentalism.
On the one hand is a deeply puritan, repressive 'theology' that subjugates women and seeks to stamp out normal physical contact between the genders. On the other is a misogynistic vision of paradise, reminiscent of a sleazy Las Vegas nightclub, full of nubile, insatiable women eager to please their men.
In one of the more grotesque versions of Islamic fundamentalism, the spiritual reward for each 'martyr' will be the company of 72 voluptuous virgins. This vision has an undoubted appeal to a sex-starved young Muslim from urban Britain.
But the reference to 72 virgins in paradise has absolutely no basis in the Koran, or in authentic Islamic theology. It comes instead from a dubious hadith — or prophetic tradition — that was produced three centuries after Mohammed's death.
In fact, militant jihadism has no religious legitimacy at all. The zealots might like to see themselves as devout believers, but in fact they are profoundly un-Islamic.
The Koran specifically declares that Muslims are allowed to take up arms for only two reasons: either because of religious persecution or because they are being driven from their homes.
But it is laughable to pretend that either of these conditions applies in contemporary Britain. The only Muslims in the UK I know who have been evicted from their homes are those who have failed to keep up with their rent or mortgage payments.
In the same vein, there is not the slightest justification in the Koran for the persecution of non-believers, most especially Christians.
Indeed, Chapter 109, verse 6 specifically confirms that everyone has a right to believe as they please and in Chapter 2, verse 256, Islam's holy text says that there is no compulsion in religion. Therefore no Muslim can demand that anyone should be forcibly converted to Islam — precisely what the barbaric Islamic State has been doing in northern Iraq at the point of a rifle.
Furthermore, Chapter 22, verse 40 states that all places of worship, including Christian churches and Jewish synagogues, should be respected as houses of God, the very opposite of the IS campaign of callous destruction and religious intimidation of all non-Muslim minorities.
The words of the Koran are being twisted and perverted to serve the jihadists' ends. In Britain, the silence of the moderate Muslim majority is only serving as an ally of bigotry and injustice.
We should be condemning with utmost urgency the atrocities committed in the name of Islam.
In the aftermath of the tragic July bombings in 2005, there was not a single march organised by the UK Islamic community against those fanatical killers.
No Muslim group took to the streets chanting 'not in my name' after the brutal murder of 52 innocent people by these Muslim assassins.
Yet just a year later, for three weekends in a row, London was brought to a complete standstill by Muslim protests about the publication of a cartoon of Mohammed in an obscure Danish magazine.
Not only did those demonstrations show contempt for freedom of expression, which is not only one of the bulwarks of Western democracy, but is also sanctioned in the Koran. It was a demonstration of a warped sense of religious injustice.
That is what we are unfortunately witnessing again today. Mainstream Muslims in Britain have yet to come out against the toxic forces of militant jihadism, which is inflicting so much carnage and suffering across the Middle East.
Unless we do so loudly and clearly, we are colluding with a theological tyranny that has no basis whatsoever in Islam's sacred scripture."

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