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Israel And The Palestinians (now with added Iran/Lebanon)


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The tweet's caption reads "Documentation: A settler shot a Palestinian from point blank range in the village of At-Tuwani". There's an IDF soldier there who witnesses it and seems supportive of the settler's action. So while nothing like the catastrophe of Gaza, the West Bank situation is still grim.

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24 minutes ago, Freedom Farter said:

The tweet's caption reads "Documentation: A settler shot a Palestinian from point blank range in the village of At-Tuwani". There's an IDF soldier there who witnesses it and seems supportive of the settler's action. So while nothing like the catastrophe of Gaza, the West Bank situation is still grim.

Utterly appalling.

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1 hour ago, Freedom Farter said:

The tweet's caption reads "Documentation: A settler shot a Palestinian from point blank range in the village of At-Tuwani". There's an IDF soldier there who witnesses it and seems supportive of the settler's action. So while nothing like the catastrophe of Gaza, the West Bank situation is still grim.

Hamas must see the West Bank as some sort of cautionary tale about what happens if you don’t fight and engage in the peace process instead. The carrot/stick mix from the Israeli right is a tad on the woody side, and not very orange.

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5 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Hamas must see the West Bank as some sort of cautionary tale about what happens if you don’t fight and engage in the peace process instead. The carrot/stick mix from the Israeli right is a tad on the woody side, and not very orange.

I don't think Hamas are particularly interested in the fluffy clouds and harmonious co-existence scenario you're painting here, that would happen if only Israel wasn't so cruel tbh. That doesn't excuse Israel's completely illegal policies of occupation and colonisation of the West Bank, but the idea that Hamas have been pushed into a violent stance by the actions of the other side needs knocking on the head.

Your points certainly explain why some ordinary Gaza Palestinians look to Hamas for leadership, but the group itself are committed to an extremist solution regardless.

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6 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Hamas must see the West Bank as some sort of cautionary tale about what happens if you don’t fight and engage in the peace process instead. The carrot/stick mix from the Israeli right is a tad on the woody side, and not very orange.

The Gaza Strip has a big advantage of having a direct border with Egypt that is under Palestinian control. The Palestinian controlled portions of the West Bank don't have that with Jordan so even if Hamas took control there it would be a lot more difficult for them to do what they are doing militarily in the Gaza Strip.

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1 hour ago, virginton said:

I don't think Hamas are particularly interested in the fluffy clouds and harmonious co-existence scenario you're painting here, that would happen if only Israel wasn't so cruel tbh. That doesn't excuse Israel's completely illegal policies of occupation and colonisation of the West Bank, but the idea that Hamas have been pushed into a violent stance by the actions of the other side needs knocking on the head.

Your points certainly explain why some ordinary Gaza Palestinians look to Hamas for leadership, but the group itself are committed to an extremist solution regardless.

Fair point that Hamas as an organisation won’t negotiate an Israeli state, but Hamas and ordinary Gaza Palestinians aren’t two mutually exclusive immutable blocs. If ordinary Gaza Palestinians don’t join Hamas, there won’t be a Hamas.

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1 hour ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

I bet the Israeli army don't bother with all that infantry supporting tanks shite. Gaza will get levelled. Then all their tunnels will get firebombed.

The problem with tunnels is there’s exactly one way to figure out if you’ve cleared them out, and that involves infantry. You can blow them to hell, but you”re never sure there isn’t an armoured door a few metres away that protects the missile factory that hasn’t been touched. Ground penetrating radar and all that is helpful, but hardly conclusive. Tunnel rat lifespans are not great, booby traps get all but the best, and an enemy willing to collapse an entire tunnel on an attacker can extract a fearsome toll.

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16 hours ago, virginton said:

It is not genocide because there is no evidence that the goal is to literally exterminate the population. 

It is both a state of war and more relevantly a state of siege. The atrocities that you state are undoubtedly happening to some degree - those are war crimes and those are the inevitable result of besieging any significant population centre. A siege is not an attempt to exterminate though: a siege ends with the surrender of the armed force within it. 

Genocide should be viewed asan entirely separate category, though it really doesn't help when roasters have been claiming 'genocide' for the alleged transport of children from one state to another, and even 'ecocide' for blowing up dams etc. It's a term that is fast losing its analytical value and becoming a propaganda term thrown at the enemy. Which will of course enable the next genuine act of genocide to proceed under the cover of spin and exaggeration. 


Genocide is the deliberate destruction, in whole or in part, by a government or its agents, of a racial, sexual, religious, tribal or political minority. It can involve not only mass murder, but also starvation, forced deportation, and political, economic and biological subjugation. Genocide involves three major components: ideology, technology, and bureaucracy/organization

Jack Nusan Porter, Ukrainian American sociologist


I go with genocide from that description 

 

Article 6 of the Rome Statute provides that "genocide" means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome_Statute_of_the_International_Criminal_Court
 

looks like the ICC agree

 

Edited by Clangers
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2 hours ago, coprolite said:

Fair point that Hamas as an organisation won’t negotiate an Israeli state, but Hamas and ordinary Gaza Palestinians aren’t two mutually exclusive immutable blocs. If ordinary Gaza Palestinians don’t join Hamas, there won’t be a Hamas.

They're not mutually exclusive but I think you're overestimating the overlap here. Were the IRA, UVF etc. the representatives of their ordinary community members in Northern Ireland after 1972? I think most people would try to draw at least some distinction between the political/terrorist organisation and the population it rests within. The same principle must surely apply to Gaza and the Palestinian community that lives there. 

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I know nothing about much of this. But who or what is Hamas. Is it a political party. Is there a leader. That's not an 'army' to go to war with. A bit like Al Qaeda was supposedly Osama Bin Laden. Not sure about ISIS. But can you go to war with an undefined enemy, which isn't an army. If Israel go for a 'ground war', who are they shooting?. Do Hamas wear uniforms.

The most powerful nation on earth along with us did a great job after 9/11 in Afghanistan.  Well not really. 

Who knows. An overall tragedy 😭

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1 hour ago, orfc said:

Well, the Israelis are trying to give fair warning so a) b) don't apply. 

Have we established that the reports of airstrikes on evacuating civilians are false then? 

And that "even though there's nowhere to go and you might struggle to get there, you've 24 hours to f**k off or we'll blow you up?" counts as "fair"?

For balance, what Hamas has said it wants to do probably meets the definition of genocide too. But they don't have Western governments cheering them on. 

 

 

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