Ground Offensive Launched in Gaza

Post Reply New Topic

Guerrilla warfare and terrorism are, I think, not genetic, but rather learned. Both tactics have been around for a long time.





I don't think it has to do with ethnicity or nationality. These tactics were developed by humans and have been used in many environments.

Ideology is undoubtedly playing a major role.

Short Gaza truce takes hold; many bodies pulled from rubble

Just FYI and all, in warfare:

any civilian casualty is on the defender if they fight around civilians.

The only time it doesn't apply is if the attacker goes out of their way to target civilians for no reason (hitting a building full of defenders and their families isn't the same).

The obvious and humane thing to do would be to prevail on Hamas to cease-fire for long enough for UN forces to evacuate Palestinian refugees and escort them past the Israeli blockade. You want out, you got it. Hamas fighter posing as civilian refugee? Interpol will be happy to talk to you. Whoever's left: combatants. Gates close, ceasefire ends. When the fighting's over, which won't take long, Israel contributes to the rebuilding, even restoring the horticulture business they left behind as capital for the Palestinians last time, the one Hamas destroyed. Refugees, welcome back, let's try it again, only this time without terrorists bent on destroying Israel, plz.

I suspect that if such an offer were extended, a very large portion of the Palestinian population would stay and choose to be classed as combatants. And then we'd be quite clear about what was going on.

In the meantime, considering that it's ever-present Christian antisemitism responsible for all this mess in the first place, I find the liberal Christian finger-wagging ironic in the extreme.

It looks like "peace loving" HAMAS have partly answered your question.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0726/633213-gaza-israel/
Quite clearly their only motivation was to inflict casualties on Israeli civilians and nothing else. At least Israel has a reason.


Well said. Folks forget rampant European anti-semitism was the biggest factor in the rise of the state of Israel. Had Russian and German people not hunted down Jewish civilians then it's unlikely anybody would have invested their hard earned money into creating a Jewish state in the middle of a desert,

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/2 ... e-conflict

Sounds very biased.

I see in the news that Hamas are the ones who have broken the latest truce, launching more rockets into Israel.

Regarding the cause of the troubles there, I once had a conversation with a Palestinian who had left Palestine and was working as a surgeon / consultant in a hospital near where I used to live in England (I was writing some software for him). According to him the principle cause of the conflict is simply "land". The house and land that had been in his family for untold generations was taken off them and they were forced off it. I can't remember whether he said it was the British or Israelis that stole his house and land, but I can see why he was pissed off about it; as any one of us would be if it happened to us wherever we live. Multiply this sentiment by the number of people who were thus treated and the cause of the seething resentment becomes clear.

The site you've linked to is hosted by a HAMAS sympathizer who has a PhD and capable of writing a convincing but (alas) misleading biased argument.

Please read the HAMAS charter written by HAMAS themselves...
The Charter identified Hamas as the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine and declares its members to be Muslims who "fear God and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors." The charter states that "our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious" and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel. The charter also states that Hamas is humanistic, and tolerant of other religions as long as they "stop disputing the sovereignty of Islam in this region". The Charter adds that "renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion" of Islam

The fact that anyone is talking to or about Hamas as though it's a legitimate anything is in itself eye-popping. It's a terrorist organisation, that's its entire reason for being. I thought we didn't negotiate with those. I mean shoot, why not bring in the vicious-Ortho nutters planting settlements where they oughtn't because they're having God hallucinations. Make it a party.

Kerry's screwed entirely because there isn't a way out of this. You can't offer resettlement, because even if you could find takers, they wouldn't go. They aren't going to stop. Nobody will be more effective than the Israelis at blockading against arms. The weepy West will insist on delivering humanitarian aid which will be immediately repurposed as war materiel. The West likewise cannot shrug and give '67-style permission to the Israelis to level the joint and take it back. Essentially nothing will happen until an Arab war begins on a scale which requires the US and whatever allies can be dug up to go and protect petro/naval/proxy interests with force in the Mediterranean, at which point the Gazan nonsense will be put down forcefully and the US will let Israel do what it will in order to have the US's back. So essentially we await a colonial solution.

eta: which, if I were still in Axis & Allies days, would mean I'd be waiting for someone to provoke another nuclear suspicion in...oh, I guess Syria would be good, as soon as the next Republican president was elected. You know Kristol's already thought of it.

Just for the record, Hamas is not contacted or negotiated with by the US, Egypt, or Israel. This is one of the biggest difficulties in "negotiating" anything with them. The negotiations are usually made between Egypt and Israel with the US as a mediator. Sometimes between Israel and the PA with the US as a mediator. So the cease fires often tend to be agreed upon without acknowledgement from Hamas.

It is hard to negotiate with a group that you refuse to negotiate with.

As for the cease fire violations, it tends to go back and forht between which side breaks it first. Some of them are the Israelis, some Hamas, and some are broken by other extremist groups and then blamed on Hamas.

BTW, it turns out that Hamas wasn't responsible for the three teens that started this latest round of senseless violence, so the imprisonment of over 400 Palestinians and the seizure of another load of property seems a bit unjustified on the part of Israel. But self-defense and all that jazz, right?

I think it's pretty clear that both parties have already decided that there isn't really anything they can agree on anyway. There have been negotiations for decades and they never work out.
The "we don't negotiate with terrorists" are usually empty words anyway. In Iraq and Afghanistan they sometimes bribed terrorist groups to go away for a while. The real problem Hamas has is that it has nothing to offer the other side.

Hamas seems to be running out of rockets, and the terrorist organization has reportedly struck a deal with its little friend in Pyongyang, "according to Western security sources."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -deal.html

There's a few reasons why no democratic state negotiates with HAMAS
i) they are on the EU list of terrorist organisations
ii) Their political leader Ismael Haniiyeh has called for the destruction of Israel, and the installation of a islamic state
(Haniyeh is considered politically moderate face of HAMAS which gives some idea of the ideology of the more hardcore members).
iii) HAMAS kill civilians either for retribution or when the opportunity arises..

Understandably Israel does not trust the Palestinian people for voting HAMAS into power via the ballot box. Can you imagine how the US congress/military would react if the people of Mexico voted in a drug cartel to run Mexico to increase flow of drugs and illegal migrants into the US and to take back Texas and California.

[quote="sonofghandi"][/quote]

All I am saying is that these "cease-fires" that have been "negotiated" have not been negotiated with the people who are supposed to stop firing.

So when Hamas violates a "cease-fire" it is not their cease fire that they are violating. And even then, Israel is plenty guilty of violating their own cease-fires. And how many times have they promised to stop building settlements in the West Bank, now? And so far they have only halted the actual construction for a total of 10 months out of the last 30 years.

If you want to weaken Hamas, stop giving them so much PR ammo. Blowing up hospitals, Mosques, power plants, schools, farms and factories, and UN buildings is not helping. Targeted strikes on the families of Hamas suspects is not helping. Restricting food, water, economic growth, and foreign aid is not helping. Leveling whole city blocks is not helping. A 3/4 civilian casualty rate is not helping. Demanding civilian evacuation in an area where there is no where to evacuate to and then blaming them (and/or Hamas) when they are injured/killed is not helping. Not allowing anyone to enter/leave Gaza is not helping. Refusing to accept the possibility of a Palestinian state (in defiance of the majority of the rest of the world) is not helping. Saying "you brought it on yourself" is not helping. Israel does everything that Hamas says they do, and then Israel is surprised when people support them. Every bomb dropped on Palestine creates another household full Hamas supporters. If Israel really wants to destroy the credability of Hamas, they should tear down the wall, lift the illegal blockade, give Palestinians enough food to survive on, get them jobs, provide them with basic rights, and treat them with basic human dignity. If they did that, Hamas would wither and die as their international sympathy support disappeared.

Even the pretense for this latest round is bogus. Those three teens weren't killed by Hamas, yet Israel used it as an excuse to jail over 400 people and seize even more property. It is amazing how just before every Israeli election cycle there seems to be another round of Israel having to be tough in defending their right to survive.

Since when has bad PR for the Israelis helped Hamas in a substantial way? Apart from ineffectual liberal whining?