Israel / Gaza / Hamas Mega-Thread

[Geilinor]

Since the Israeli evacuation of Gaza there has never been a year without rocket attacks from there; there has seldom even been a month without attacks.

there is a difference between rocket attacks and hamas rocket attacks.

i would consider a month with literally 1 rocket to be splitting hairs. and when the number of rockets fired a month goes from 4 to 2,874 you know that something has gone pretty badly.

When someone fires almost 3,000 rockets at you in a month, it's their fault.

[Alyakia]

there is a difference between rocket attacks and hamas rocket attacks.

i would consider a month with literally 1 rocket to be splitting hairs. and when the number of rockets fired a month goes from 4 to 2,874 you know that something has gone pretty badly.

When someone fires almost 3,000 rockets at you in a month, it's their fault.

the problem with this kind of thinking is that it completely ignores israel's actions in every case

[Geilinor]

When someone fires almost 3,000 rockets at you in a month, it's their fault.

the problem with this kind of thinking is that it completely ignores israel's actions in every case

I'm not saying Israel is perfect.

[MERIZoC]

the problem with this kind of thinking is that it completely ignores israel's actions in every case

I'm not saying Israel is perfect.

And nobody is saying Hamas is perfect, or good. Israel is certainly far from perfect, and should be criticized for their immoral actions.

[TomKirk]

I'm not saying Israel is perfect.

And nobody is saying Hamas is perfect, or good. Israel is certainly far from perfect, and should be criticized for their immoral actions.

I was responding to a poster who claimed that whole months and years had gone by without attacks, which was simply untrue.

[Great Israel]

I dot know if you know, but the situation in Israel is bad, real bad. I have no clue why its not covered on the news but, for a week now, there have benn stabbing terror attacks, Palestinians are in an intifada, there are 4 to 5 stabbing attacks a day, and throwing rocks with no stop. its that bad that i personally, am afraid to go out of my house.

[Seraven]

I dot know if you know, but the situation in Israel is bad, real bad. I have no clue why its not covered on the news but, for a week now, there have benn stabbing terror attacks, Palestinians are in an intifada, there are 4 to 5 stabbing attacks a day, and throwing rocks with no stop. its that bad that i personally, am afraid to go out of my house.

Situation in Palestine is worse.

[Equestria and Griffon]

The locking is soon...

[Alyakia]

And nobody is saying Hamas is perfect, or good. Israel is certainly far from perfect, and should be criticized for their immoral actions.

I was responding to a poster who claimed that whole months and years had gone by without attacks, which was simply untrue.

i said months had gone by without hamas attacks not months had gone by with no attacks. the problem lies with you not me.

[Geilinor]

I was responding to a poster who claimed that whole months and years had gone by without attacks, which was simply untrue.

i said months had gone by without hamas attacks not months had gone by with no attacks. the problem lies with you not me.

Hamas is actually attacking right now. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/09/hamas-leader-gaza-declares-intifada-deadly-attacks-continue

It's a semi-war. http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-jets-reportedly-strike-hamas-targets-in-gaza/

[West Aurelia]

A pregnant Palestinian woman and her three-year-old son were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

[Kraylandia]

A pregnant Palestinian woman and her three-year-old son were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

And we continue to fund these terrorists. *sigh*

[Prussia-Steinbach]

A pregnant Palestinian woman and her three-year-old son were killed in an Israeli airstrike.

"Israel isn't perfect, but they're still better than those Palestinian terrorist dogs!"

[Herskerstad]

Since the Israeli evacuation of Gaza there has never been a year without rocket attacks from there; there has seldom even been a month without attacks.

there is a difference between rocket attacks and hamas rocket attacks.

i would consider a month with literally 1 rocket to be splitting hairs. and when the number of rockets fired a month goes from 4 to 2,874 you know that something has gone pretty badly.

You may consider it splitting hairs, but when that alarm goes off with that kind of frequency for cities to hear and about a 30 second time to bunker down? The populace ain't gonna have the same notion of it.

[Alyakia]

there is a difference between rocket attacks and hamas rocket attacks.

i would consider a month with literally 1 rocket to be splitting hairs. and when the number of rockets fired a month goes from 4 to 2,874 you know that something has gone pretty badly.

You may consider it splitting hairs, but when that alarm goes off with that kind of frequency for cities to hear and about a 30 second time to bunker down? The populace ain't gonna have the same notion of it.

i'd prefer 30 seconds to hide from a glorified pipe than 0 seconds to hide from a bomb or 0 seconds to hide from a jet (the bombing is a warning that there's an even bigger bombing coming! hope you don't die also p.s. no saying you're going to be hitting things in half the country does not count as a warning when israel does it anymore than when hamas does it)

it is splitting hairs. if you're so scared of the attacks then 1 rocket a month is great.

[Uxupox]

You may consider it splitting hairs, but when that alarm goes off with that kind of frequency for cities to hear and about a 30 second time to bunker down? The populace ain't gonna have the same notion of it.

i'd prefer 30 seconds to hide from a glorified pipe than 0 seconds to hide from a bomb or 0 seconds to hide from a jet (the bombing is a warning that there's an even bigger bombing coming! hope you don't die also p.s. no saying you're going to be hitting things in half the country does not count as a warning when israel does it anymore than when hamas does it)

it is splitting hairs. if you're so scared of the attacks then 1 rocket a month is great.

It's still unreasonable to expect ANY country to ignore/tolerate rocket attacks against them. Heck the rocket attacks don't even try to damage governmental building they just try and "maximize" the kill ratio they get (If they get any because luckily the Israeli Iron Dome is so good that it stops the majority of these attacks) against the civilians.

Let's say your neighbor is throwing rocks at you once per month or twice per month and sometimes he hits you but sometimes he does not. You just gonna ignore that or are you gonna take action against it?

[Brickistan]

i'd prefer 30 seconds to hide from a glorified pipe than 0 seconds to hide from a bomb or 0 seconds to hide from a jet (the bombing is a warning that there's an even bigger bombing coming! hope you don't die also p.s. no saying you're going to be hitting things in half the country does not count as a warning when israel does it anymore than when hamas does it)

it is splitting hairs. if you're so scared of the attacks then 1 rocket a month is great.

It's still unreasonable to expect ANY country to ignore/tolerate rocket attacks against them. Heck the rocket attacks don't even try to damage governmental building they just try and "maximize" the kill ratio they get (If they get any because luckily the Israeli Iron Dome is so good that it stops the majority of these attacks) against the civilians.

Let's say your neighbor is throwing rocks at you once per month or twice per month and sometimes he hits you but sometimes he does not. You just gonna ignore that or are you gonna take action against it?

Let's say that your neighbor invades your country, takes control of all infrastructure, sets up roadblocks everywhere, and let ultra-nationalists settle in the occupied areas... Are you just going to ignore that or are you going to take action?

From the Palestinian point of view, they're simply fighting to expel an invader.

[Uxupox]

It's still unreasonable to expect ANY country to ignore/tolerate rocket attacks against them. Heck the rocket attacks don't even try to damage governmental building they just try and "maximize" the kill ratio they get (If they get any because luckily the Israeli Iron Dome is so good that it stops the majority of these attacks) against the civilians.

Let's say your neighbor is throwing rocks at you once per month or twice per month and sometimes he hits you but sometimes he does not. You just gonna ignore that or are you gonna take action against it?

Let's say that your neighbor invades your country, takes control of all infrastructure, sets up roadblocks everywhere, and let ultra-nationalists settle in the occupied areas... Are you just going to ignore that or are you going to take action?

From the Palestinian point of view, they're simply fighting to expel an invader.

To expel the invader you don't kill civilians. You target specific institutions such as government buildings, military barracks and so on and so forth. Here Hamas just props up a rocket and hopes it hit something and if it hits something most of the time it's a civilian that had nothing to do with current conflict between Hamas and the Israeli government.

[Alyakia]

i'd prefer 30 seconds to hide from a glorified pipe than 0 seconds to hide from a bomb or 0 seconds to hide from a jet (the bombing is a warning that there's an even bigger bombing coming! hope you don't die also p.s. no saying you're going to be hitting things in half the country does not count as a warning when israel does it anymore than when hamas does it)

it is splitting hairs. if you're so scared of the attacks then 1 rocket a month is great.

It's still unreasonable to expect ANY country to ignore/tolerate rocket attacks against them. Heck the rocket attacks don't even try to damage governmental building they just try and "maximize" the kill ratio they get (If they get any because luckily the Israeli Iron Dome is so good that it stops the majority of these attacks) against the civilians.

Let's say your neighbor is throwing rocks at you once per month or twice per month and sometimes he hits you but sometimes he does not. You just gonna ignore that or are you gonna take action against it?

the figures for casualties and deaths are actually higher in the year iron dome was put up then the years before even though there were less rockets fired in comparative years. the reality is that iron dome had no real effect on the rockets because they are so shit they are unlikely to actually do anything in the first place. the rockets are a purely psychological threat and israel is very safe, by their governments own admission. and in a world where 1 bomb can and has killed 5x more people than 12,000 rockets and 6,500 mortars ever did you have to try really really really hard to convince me that i should care when israel goes on about how they in super danger (until it damages their tourism and they change their tune)

honestly, now i think about it, that might be the real problem. other countries don't have the luxury of invading and wrecking shit with impunity every time sometimes goes wrong and handwrining and declaring the peace process over because 1 attack from some random minor group (in this case, not hamas) happened. which is why getting to that point is viewed as a great thing not some intolerable apocalypse.

that's a stupid comparison but sure. if he threw 2,000 rocks one month and then he didn't throw any one month but his friends kid threw 1 i'd be fucking delighted. if the guy a few streets over was getting hammered with a goddamn catapult i'd be thanking my lucky stars im getting rocks. i mean, i have a catapult and half the country on my side so i could fucking destroy rock man whenever i wanted. but catapult guy? he's fucked. he has a catapult as well but there's no way he can just go and beat the shit out of the other guy without starting a huge fucking war that will leave millions dead. he'd be 100% justified in telling me to shut the fuck up if i went on a big spiel about how my house is the most dangerous house in the world.

and jesus christ this is why analogies are useless.

[Alyakia]

Let's say that your neighbor invades your country, takes control of all infrastructure, sets up roadblocks everywhere, and let ultra-nationalists settle in the occupied areas... Are you just going to ignore that or are you going to take action?

From the Palestinian point of view, they're simply fighting to expel an invader.

To expel the invader you don't kill civilians. You target specific institutions such as government buildings, military barracks and so on and so forth. Here Hamas just props up a rocket and hopes it hit something and if it hits something most of the time it's a civilian that had nothing to do with current conflict between Hamas and the Israeli government.

why has the IDF placed their HQ beside a mall and a hospital? cowards! human shields!

[Brickistan]

Let's say that your neighbor invades your country, takes control of all infrastructure, sets up roadblocks everywhere, and let ultra-nationalists settle in the occupied areas... Are you just going to ignore that or are you going to take action?

From the Palestinian point of view, they're simply fighting to expel an invader.

To expel the invader you don't kill civilians. You target specific institutions such as government buildings, military barracks and so on and so forth. Here Hamas just props up a rocket and hopes it hit something and if it hits something most of the time it's a civilian that had nothing to do with current conflict between Hamas and the Israeli government.

Civilians have been a target during war since the dawn of time. For a particular egregious example, look at the Allied bombing campaigns during WW2.

There's also the question of what else Hamas is supposed to do? They're not exactly in control of a fully functioning country with a formal army. Taking on the Israeli army directly would be suicide. So instead they revert to guerrilla attacks aimed at softer targets.

It's not really something I condone, but I do have an understanding for why it's happening.

[Alyakia]

in the sake of fairness hamas should do only what jewish paramilitaries (which later became the IDF) did back in the day

[Elepis]

Let's say that your neighbor invades your country, takes control of all infrastructure, sets up roadblocks everywhere, and let ultra-nationalists settle in the occupied areas... Are you just going to ignore that or are you going to take action?

From the Palestinian point of view, they're simply fighting to expel an invader.

To expel the invader you don't kill civilians. You target specific institutions such as government buildings, military barracks and so on and so forth. Here Hamas just props up a rocket and hopes it hit something and if it hits something most of the time it's a civilian that had nothing to do with current conflict between Hamas and the Israeli government.

Hamas don't have any-other weapons, Gaza is under a blockade, where do you think they will get them from?

well, if you want to limit the three (?) civilian casualties caused by Hamas rocket attacks maybe Israel should them guided misslies and F-16s

[Grunberg-Ludbach]

Israel is complicated. Originally, the Jewish settlers in the region did little wrong, and bought land from Palestinians to form a nation state. Later, they faced legitimate threats from Palestinians and other Islamic groups in the region. The Jews in Israel had their peace and sovereignty violated extensively in the 6 Days War and the subsequent Yom Kippur War, wherein the Israelites gained some land legitimately, before returning the majority of it. Around this same period of time, Israeli Jews faced bus bombs, offensives, and other terrorist acts from radical Islamists. Israel fought back.

This would make Israel sound like the good guys. While I am a zionist to an extent, they have commited some atrocities since the 1990s that I cannot excuse. The last few Israeli governments have been under the impression that they are morally righteous, and that they can get away with anything, even if it is condemned internationally.

Palestine, on the other hand, still has a population that harbours largely genocidal opinions against the Jews.

In scenarios like these, taking sides is really the silly thing to do.