MENA part infinity

[Dicer]

All the more reason that Hamas be removed from power, as it is using civilian centers as a base for firing at civilian centers. Causing suffering to both people. Removing the blockade would just allow them to rearm, and lead to a far bloodier war, just like leaving Gaza in 2005 lead to the current situation. You really want the Palestinians to have a better life? Remove Hamas, and thus the reason for having the blockade in the first place will be eliminated.

Do you hold Hamas and the Israeli government/IDF to the same standards and ideals?

If yes, then since Hamas is designated a terrorist organization, I would assume that you hold the IDF also to be a terrorist organization?

If no, then do you expect higher standards from the army of a democratic country as compared to a terrorist organization?

Have you heard of the Geneva conventions? Do you think Israel should follow the Geneva conventions?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/gaza-hamas-fighters-military-bases-guerrilla-war-civilians-israel-idf

International law also bans the use of medical units or prisoners of war to deter enemy attack.

However, even if Hamas were violating the law on this matter, it would not legally justify Israel's bombing of areas where civilians are known to be.

"Any violation of these prohibitions shall not release the parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians, including the obligation to take the precautionary measures," the conventions say.

The separation between "civilian" and "military" in Gaza is much more blurred than with a conventional army – both physically and in the Gazan psyche. Hamas and other militants are embedded in the population. Their fighters are not quartered in military barracks, but sleep at night in their family homes. While it is not difficult to find antipathy to Hamas on the streets of Gaza in quiet times, most people defend their "right to resist" – and under such sustained military attack, support for Hamas rises.

Israel, meanwhile, does not have an unblemished record in the use of human shields. In 2010, two soldiers were convicted in an IDF military court of using an 11-year-old Palestinian boy as a human shield in its 2008-09 operation in Gaza. The pair ordered the child to search bags they suspected of being booby-trapped.

It was the first conviction of what is known within the IDF as the "neighbour procedure" – forcing civilians to assist troops in military operations. Investigations by news organisations and human rights groups have suggested the IDF has used Palestinians as human shields in operations in both Gaza and the West Bank.

Meanwhile, in response to Israel's assertions that Hamas situates its military centres in civilian areas, some have pointed out that the IDF's headquarters, the Kiriya, is in central Tel Aviv, surrounded by a hospital, blocks of flats, shopping centres and offices.

So if Hamas (Since according to you they are the Palestinian army) drops a big bomb on IDF headquarters and the surrounding block of flats, hospital, shopping center and offices all blow up killing hundreds, that's justified because it's collateral damage?

Airlines have stopped flights to Israel due to an errant missile not even hitting the air-port, but falling in the vicinity. A countries economy is critically reliant on its international airports to be open. The damage to the economy is estimated at 4 billion dollars. You seem to think that just because missiles (mostly) don't hit people, we should sit down and allow it to happen.

Okay, so a search online has given me the following:

http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Before-truce-Ben-Gurion-Airport-halts-flights-between-700-am-815-am-370089

Ben Gurion Airport, Israel's main international airport, halted all arriving and departing flights between 7:00 a.m. and 8:15 a.m. on Tuesday morning in advance of a 72-hour cease-fire that began at 8:00 a.m. between Israel and Hamas.

19 flights were delayed due to the decision.

A few minutes before the cease-fire came into effect, Hamas unleashed a barrage of rocket fire on various regions in Israel. No rockets landed at Ben Gurion.

You are saying that this has brought Israeli economy to a halt?

More on the effects of the current crisis on Israeli economy

http://forward.com/articles/203032/gaza-war-will-dent-not-derail-israel-economic/?

Where does it say that the entire Israeli economy is halted or shut down?

The estimated cost is around 3 billion dollars. American taxpayers are shelling out more for something that they have no hand in. The worst hit seems to be the tourism industry because who wants to enjoy Israeli tourism while Palestinians are starving next door.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/war-depresses-people-economy-strong-shekel-harmful/

Yet even as international concern over the conflict grows, the value of the shekel relative to both the dollar and the euro remains quite high, at 3.43 and 4.60, respectively.

According to Rafael Gozlan, chief economist at Israel Brokerage & Investment, this is because “the market in general looks at [the conflict] as a short term event.” Yossi Fraiman, CEO of the Prico Group Investment House, agrees. “There is no major effect on the economy, so there is no real reason why the [currency] value would go higher. If you look at the second Lebanon War (in 2006) and all past clashes with the Palestinians, you see that the exchange rate wasn’t really affected by the conflict.”

Forgive me if my sympathies lie more with the 500 dead children and their families, their lack of homes, water, power, schools and hospitals than for a dent in the Israeli economy. Israel has bombed Gaza into the medieval age. Coupled with the blockades and economic strangulation of Gaza, I find it hard to muster sadness for the loss of the Israeli tourism industry.

[Dicer]

It definitely improved in the Oslo accords period, and at the same time, Israel faced one of the worst terror attack waves in history.

Can you list out how it improved?

You are trying to paint the Palestinians with one brush, but Hamas is not the Palestinian people, and its interests do not go hand in hand with the Palestinian people's well being, or they would have changed their ways long ago.

Yes, Hamas is not the whole Palestinian people. But they are the resistance. Are the Israelis changing their way? Are the Israelis trying for peace? Are the Israelis ready for a two state settlement? If not, then why should Hamas bend?

When Israel allowed concrete and money into Gaza to rebuild after 2009, they spent it on building tunnel networks under the border into Israel, bunkers and control rooms. Easing the blockade, for them, is a way to arm, not help the average Palestinian.

So that’s the excuse for not allowing Gazans to have the most basic of building materials? You said above that Hamas is not the Palestinian people. So it’s justified to collectively punish an entire people to stop Hamas?

During WWII the French resistance and the Polish Home army used to build tunnels underground to fight the German occupation. When there is an illegal occupation, the oppressed will resist and fight back.

They do not play by your rules, or think with your logic. They see cease fires as a way to rearm, and they see peace agreements as a risk to their future goals. That is why no matter what will be done to ease the situation in Gaza, Hamas will simply use it to its own ends. You want the Palestinian situation to improve? Hamas needs to be disarmed, and either an international force or the PA replace it. Then there would be no more need for sanctions or a blockade.

Israel is also not playing by anyone's rules or logic. They are indiscriminately massacring children. I find that unforgivable and unconscionable. Israel is using excuse after excuse to massacre Gazans. First it was the 3 dead Israeli teens, then it was the tunnels, then it was a missing soldier. What next? They use the ceasefire to kill more civilians.

End the illegal occupation and give the Palestinians their land back.

You of all people are blaming me for being blindly one sided, while comically ignoring decades of Palestinian leaderships rejectionism, promoting hate filled education programs while talking peace, using every progress towards permanent status as a way to derail it later, from arming under Oslo to using Gaza as a missile staging ground in 2005, to using the easing of the blockade and imports of cement from Israel to fund their future military operations? You ignore the split with Hamas and Fatah which prevent any real ability to negotiate with two sides who are so different from the other, and totally whitewash all attacks against Israel as if they have no effect, cause no suffering.

It’s the Israelis who talk about eliminating a whole people as a solution to this problem. It’s the Israelis that are munching on popcorn while watching Gaza being bombed. It’s the Israelis that cheered the death of Palestinian children. Who is promoting hate and genocide here?

Again, list out what was so awesome about the Oslo accord. Did it give back the Palestinians their farmland? Did it allow their children to have basic human rights? Did it allow them to have control over their economy?

Blocking basic necessities to a people should never happen in the first place. If you do that, don’t be surprised when an armed resistance forms to take you on.

The split in Hamas and Fatah happened because of Israeli and American interference. Again, you did not read the article I linked to. So I will quote:

After its victory, Hamas called for a national unity government with Fatah “for the purpose of ending the occupation and settlements and achieving a complete withdrawal from the lands occupied [by Israel] in 1967, including Jerusalem, so that the region enjoys calm and stability during this phase.”

Israel and the U.S. would have been wiser to follow the counsel of former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy, who called for Sharon to try to forge a long-term truce with Hamas. Israel could also have pushed Hamas to pledge that if Abbas—who remained PA president—negotiated a deal with Israel, Hamas would accept the will of the Palestinian people as expressed in a referendum, something the group’s leaders have subsequently promised to do.

Instead, the Bush administration—suddenly less enamored of Middle Eastern democracy–pressured Abbas to dissolve the Palestinian parliament and rule by emergency decree. Israel, which also wanted Abbas to defy the election results, withheld the tax and customs revenue it had collected on the Palestinian Authority’s behalf.

Knowing Hamas would resist Abbas’ efforts to annul the election, especially in Gaza, where it was strong on the ground, the Bushies also began urging Abbas’ former national security advisor, a Gazan named Mohammed Dahlan, to seize power in the Strip by force. As David Rose later detailed in an extraordinary article in Vanity Fair, Condoleezza Rice pushed Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to buy weapons for Dahlan, and for Israel to allow them to enter Gaza. As General Mark Dayton, US security coordinator for the Palestinians, told Dahlan in November 2006, “We also need you to build up your forces in order to take on Hamas.”

Unfortunately for the Bush administration, Dahlan’s forces were weaker than they looked. And when the battle for Gaza began, Hamas won it easily, and brutally. In response, Abbas declared emergency rule in the West Bank.

I will be one of the first to say that our current government is just as reductionist as the PLO. But your utter inability to give any share of responsibility to Hamas, the PLO or any other Palestinian leader to the current situation, whitewashing their crimes or outright justifying them, while purposely ignoring the periods where Israel did negotiate in good faith (and made compromises that have haunted it until today), make your claims of other people's one sidedness absurd, to say the least.

Please mention when Israel negotiated in good faith and list out what they were ready to give the Palestinians. What compromises have they made?

This is how Palestinian children are treated

http://www.unicef.org/oPt/UNICEF_oPt_Children_in_Israeli_Military_Detention_Observations_and_Recommendations_-_6_March_2013.pdf

The Palestinians and Hamas don’t have a lot of power in this situation. They are the oppressed. They are struggling under a crippling economic blockade. They have no access to education, medicines and food or good farmland. Their children are arrested and subjected to inhumane treatment.

So yes, I would support the Palestinians any day. End the occupation, give them their freedom. If then they continue to fire rockets at Israel, Israel will have my full support and I will be on here ranting about the Palestinians. Until then, one side is the oppressor and the other the oppressed and my sympathies lie with the oppressed.

[Arakan]

The whole thing is a PR disaster for Israel. This time they got a "freepass" from the US/EU but not so much anymore the next time when things will escalate again. Of course all of this strongly depends on who will sit next in the Oval Office.

What Israel's political leaders must understand is that many Western leaders are quite annoyed about the whole situation as nothing ever changes but the problems rise, esp. Europe. It is a joke that this conflict is already fought in our streets.

Of course Hamas still takes the major blame in the public perception (but less than in 2009) but if Hamas ever changes their radical attitude towards Israel (unlikely but possible, take a look at the PLO) then Israel has a major problem.

Political leaders in the West will start to ask questions about discrimination, distribution of land and ressources (esp. water) and the general political willingness of Israel to work towards a long-term sustainable solution of the conflict. So far those questions are not mainstream in the West but they will become...

Israel needs the US and EU (the former for political the latter for economic reasons) so it would be wise to dont overuse Western patience.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Suttree,

Just don't forget the lawn chairs and popcorn while jostling for the best seat while "hiding" on the ridge.

For the third time:

Yes, those few Israelis making bombing a spectator sport are pretty disgusting. Right along with the "Scud spuds" glued to CNN during Gulf War 1 and any number of people who have gathered to watch violence throughout history. They are certainly not representative of Israelis at large nor should they be held out as such.

[Dicer]

The whole thing is a PR disaster for Israel. This time they got a "freepass" from the US/EU but not so much anymore the next time when things will escalate again. Of course all of this strongly depends on who will sit next in the Oval Office.

What Israel's political leaders must understand is that many Western leaders are quite annoyed about the whole situation as nothing ever changes but the problems rise, esp. Europe. It is a joke that this conflict is already fought in our streets.

Of course Hamas still takes the major blame in the public perception (but less than in 2009) but if Hamas ever changes their radical attitude towards Israel (unlikely but possible, take a look at the PLO) then Israel has a major problem.

Political leaders in the West will start to ask questions about discrimination, distribution of land and ressources (esp. water) and the general political willingness of Israel to work towards a long-term sustainable solution of the conflict. So far those questions are not mainstream in the West but they will become...

Israel needs the US and EU (the former for political the latter for economic reasons) so it would be wise to dont overuse Western patience.

I don't think it matters all that much who sits in the oval office. AIPAC and the Israel lobby have too much money and power and as long as corrupt US politicians exist, the support for Israeli aggression and war crimes will continue.

Americans don't seem to understand that their support for Israel is only harming them in the long term. I am not sure what they get out of their support for Israel, but the Israel/Palestine conflict is the primary reason why arabs/muslims have anti-American sentiments.

I also don't see Hamas changing their radical nature unless Israel is serious about peace. Hamas being radical works to Israel's advantage and every few years Israel is going to 'mow the lawn' and kill a few hundred children. Israel is not interested in a two-state or one-state solution, the settlements are going to continue and in another 10 years we are going to be debating the same thing.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Lev,

Behind every zionist, i sense a smug and perverse sense of entitlement that everything they did (the war crimes, the largest concentration camp in the world, the unrelenting land grab) is always justified because their predecessors suffered so much so now it's the palestinians turn.

It's a really warped ideology but then again it's a crazy world.

Including Datepalm and Axes who oppose the occupation?

[Dicer]

Including Axes who oppose the occupation?

Axes opposes the occupation? I wouldn't know from his/her posts. He/she been justifying the bombing of innocent civilians as collateral damage for like 5 pages.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2014/08/04/israeli-general-no-civilians-in-gaza.html

Retired Israeli Major General Giora Eiland wrote in an op-ed that there is no such thing as an innocent civilian in Gaza. Late Monday, the former head of the National Security Council published an article on Ynet News arguing that the citizens of Gaza were as responsible for the recent violence as Hamas. He even made a comparison between the Gaza under Hamas and Nazi Germany.

"[T]hey are to blame for this situation just like Germany's residents were to blame for electing Hitler as their leader and paid a heavy price for that, and rightfully so," Eiland wrote.

Eiland's controversial remarks come amid others made by Israeli far-right bloggers and politicians. On Friday, the Times of Israel removed a blog post titled "When Genocide is Permissible," after an outcry from readers. Before that, a right-wing member of Israel's Knesset compared Palestinian children to "little snakes."

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Dicer,

Axes post on page one of this thread:

For the record: I oppose the occupation of the west bank, I abhor the settlements, although I'm probably far less left wing in my political views than datepalm, because I believe that at the same time, we need to deal with Hamas, possibly even topple it, in order to help the moderates. I also consider myself a Zionist.

This effort to turn "Zionist" into a word equivent with "Nazi" is absurd. As Shryke pointed out "Zionist" encompasses a very wide swath of politically beliefs. Attempting to use it in a fashion that excludes those who support Israel's existence but oppose the occupation, settlements (Axes), and IDF actions (Datepalm) is disingenuous, at best.

[Dicer]

I am not going to get into the Zionism discussion, since I don't know much about that.

But Axes supports the Israeli chokehold on Gaza where the Israeli IDF is surrounding Gaza on air, sea and land and Gazans are denied even the most basic necessities to live a decent life. So saying he/she is opposed to occupation is disingenuous when he/she is supporting what is happening in Gaza.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Dicer,

Why would Axes support the IDF action in Gaza?

[Fez]

I don't think it matters all that much who sits in the oval office. AIPAC and the Israel lobby have too much money and power and as long as corrupt US politicians exist, the support for Israeli aggression and war crimes will continue.

Americans don't seem to understand that their support for Israel is only harming them in the long term. I am not sure what they get out of their support for Israel, but the Israel/Palestine conflict is the primary reason why arabs/muslims have anti-American sentiments.

It has little to with corruption, just a combination of not wanting to piss off two voting blocs unnecessarily: Jews and Christian fundamentalists.

I agree that our unconditional support of Israel is not in the US' best interests, but its not the primary reason why anti-Americanism is so high in the region. The US was becoming the Great Satan long before it took over Israeli-support duties from the UK/France, and it was because we kept propping up particularly brutal dictators in "the fight against communism." Also the whole "having airbases in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques" is a big driver among the Islamists, which is also unrelated to Israel.

[Dicer]

Dicer,

Why would Axes support the IDF action in Gaza?

Why don't you read Axes' posts? He has answered your question in his posts.

But it seems to boil down to: Hamas is responsible for everything. 2000 Palestinians dead? That sucks but Hamas is responsible for that too. No cement to rebuild? Sucks, but Hamas is building tunnels so all the Palestinians are only allowed huts. Blockade on Gaza? That sucks but Hamas is evil. Bombing civilian infrastructure? That sucks, but Hamas was there.

Axes thinks the blockade on Gaza is necessary. Do you agree?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Dicer,

I think the blockade of Gaza is very problematic regardless of its justifications. That said, I do acknowledge that those justifications exist even if I don't believe they justify the extensive nature of the blockade.

These threads seem to falling into the false dichotomy fallacy. "You support Israel or you are against Israel" or "you oppose Israel or you support Israel". As with most of real life there is a great deal more play and nuance between these two positions than those on the extremes would like to allow.

[ants]

Dicer:

All the more reason that Hamas be removed from power, as it is using civilian centers as a base for firing at civilian centers. Causing suffering to both people. Removing the blockade would just allow them to rearm, and lead to a far bloodier war, just like leaving Gaza in 2005 lead to the current situation. You really want the Palestinians to have a better life? Remove Hamas, and thus the reason for having the blockade in the first place will be eliminated.

.....

Airlines have stopped flights to Israel due to an errant missile not even hitting the air-port, but falling in the vicinity. A countries economy is critically reliant on its international airports to be open. The damage to the economy is estimated at 4 billion dollars. You seem to think that just because missiles (mostly) don't hit people, we should sit down and allow it to happen.

.....

It definitely improved in the Oslo accords period, and at the same time, Israel faced one of the worst terror attack waves in history. You are trying to paint the Palestinians with one brush, but Hamas is not the Palestinian people, and its interests do not go hand in hand with the Palestinian people's well being, or they would have changed their ways long ago. When Israel allowed concrete and money into Gaza to rebuild after 2009, they spent it on building tunnel networks under the border into Israel, bunkers and control rooms. Easing the blockade, for them, is a way to arm, not help the average Palestinian. They do not play by your rules, or think with your logic. They see cease fires as a way to rearm, and they see peace agreements as a risk to their future goals. That is why no matter what will be done to ease the situation in Gaza, Hamas will simply use it to its own ends. You want the Palestinian situation to improve? Hamas needs to be disarmed, and either an international force or the PA replace it. Then there would be no more need for sanctions or a blockade.

.....

You of all people are blaming me for being blindly one sided, while comically ignoring decades of Palestinian leaderships rejectionism, promoting hate filled education programs while talking peace, using every progress towards permanent status as a way to derail it later, from arming under Oslo to using Gaza as a missile staging ground in 2005, to using the easing of the blockade and imports of cement from Israel to fund their future military operations? You ignore the split with Hamas and Fatah which prevent any real ability to negotiate with two sides who are so different from the other, and totally whitewash all attacks against Israel as if they have no effect, cause no suffering.

I will be one of the first to say that our current government is just as reductionist as the PLO. But your utter inability to give any share of responsibility to Hamas, the PLO or any other Palestinian leader to the current situation, whitewashing their crimes or outright justifying them, while purposely ignoring the periods where Israel did negotiate in good faith (and made compromises that have haunted it until today), make your claims of other people's one sidedness absurd, to say the least.

I'm not quite sure why this is all on Hamas and the Palestinians. All they need to do is stop doing everything that Israel doesn't like, and then you'll negotiate. If they do that, what exactly do they have to negotiate with at the table? It seems to be a position of forcing them to come to the negotiations as beggars, forced to accept any scraps they are given. Renouncing violence and recognising Israel are pretty much the only bargaining chips they have - if I am wrong, what others do they have?

Whereas Israel has far more bargaining chips. They are causing far more deaths. They are the occupying power and clearly do hold the power. Surely in this position, and claiming to be a Western nation, they need to be the ones to compromise. Rather than setting unrealistic demands on an occupied territory.

[aceluby]

Dicer,

I think the blockade of Gaza is very problematic regardless of its justifications. That said, I do acknowledge that those justifications exist even if I don't believe they justify the extensive nature of the blockade.

These threads seem to falling into the false dichotomy fallacy. "You support Israel or you are against Israel" or "you oppose Israel or you support Israel". As with most of real life there is a great deal more play and nuance between these two positions than those on the extremes would like to allow.

If they don't justify the extensive nature of the blockade then logically those justifications do not exist. Justifications are what is needed to justify something, which you admit they do not.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Ace,

No. Justifications do exist. They simply do not justify the full blockade. Pretending justifications for the blockade don't exist is falling into the false dichotomy fallacy.

Are you suggesting a blockade that intercepted only arms wouldn't be justified?

[Dicer]

Ace,

No. Justifications do exist. They simply do not justify the full blockade. Pretending justifications for the blockade don't exist is falling into the false dichotomy fallacy.

Are you suggesting a blockade that intercepted only arms wouldn't be justified?

Are you suggesting that Gaza/Palestinians should never be allowed control of their own borders?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Dicer,

I'm saying that if Hamas is lobbing shells into Israel the Israelis are justified in imposing a blockade that is limited to preventing arms from entering Gaza.

Do you disagree?

[Dicer]

Dicer,

I'm saying that if Hamas is lobbing shells into Israel the Israelis are justified in imposing a blockade that is limited to preventing arms from entering Gaza.

Do you disagree?

You did not reply to my question so I will ask again.

Do you think the Palestinians should be allowed control of their own borders?

If you don't think so, then you agree that Israel is right to occupy and control Palestinian land.

And no, I don't think Israel is justified in imposing any kind of blockade on another state. Let the Palestinian authority stop the flow of arms into extremist hands.

That's the whole point. Give the Palestinians their land back, nurture the more moderate Palestinian authorities. But time and time again, Israel has shown an unwillingness to deal with the Palestinian moderates which helps Hamas come to power. Time and time again, Israel has shown an unwillingness to seriously broker a two state deal and give the Palestinians their freedom. Israel needs Hamas, so that they can justify this brutal occupation.

Hamas would not be lobbing shells into Israel if Israel was not occupying their lands.

Gaza and the West Bank are occupied lands

Gazans are denied basic human rights, access to medicine, education and food. The blockade is slowly killing them. That is what Hamas is responding to.

[aceluby]

Ace,

No. Justifications do exist. They simply do not justify the full blockade. Pretending justifications for the blockade don't exist is falling into the false dichotomy fallacy.

Are you suggesting a blockade that intercepted only arms wouldn't be justified?

For me it seems like a very basic right that a nation can control and defend its borders, so no, I don't think any blockade at this point is justified since Israel continues to invade and occupy those lands. Why does only one nation get the right to defend, or even arm itself? The Hamas wouldn't even be in power if the Palestinian govt was actually allowed trade and a standing army.