Hamas

[tatty]

What is your opinion of Hamas being called to the ICC?

Is the amount of force used by Israel a war crime or justified retaliation?

[Jayhawker Soule]

The dull disgusting drumbeat continues ...

You think it is disgusting for me to state that I am against Hamas/Hezbollah, but also at the same time state that I believe Israel are being too heavy handed?

Personally, I find it disgusting that you are seemingly dismissive of Israel's actions. We clearly differ wildly in our opinions.

I don't think that the position that Jayhawker was attacking was a fair representation of your own.

What do you find unfair?

[cnorman18]

The dull disgusting drumbeat continues ...

You think it is disgusting for me to state that I am against Hamas/Hezbollah, but also at the same time state that I believe Israel are being too heavy handed?

Personally, I find it disgusting that you are seemingly dismissive of Israel's actions. We clearly differ wildly in our opinions.

I don't think that the position that Jayhawker was attacking was a fair representation of your own.

What do you find unfair?

I don't think it's appropriate to speculate about what may or may not have crossed someone's mind, for starters; you have no right to presume to know the basis or bases for another's opinion. Further, I don't think VUK could be properly described as an "apologist" for Hamas &c; apologists normally justify terrorism. At least VUK denounces it. I think it's his intent, at least, to be fair and evenhanded - he's just bought into all the anti-Israel propaganda that's become the conventional wisdom in the West. IF that were all true, Israel would indeed be the out-of-control monster that is the intended subject for debate here. The one thing you said that WAS fair was that VUK just assumed Israel's guilt.

Let me make it clear; your posts were perfectly accurate and appropriate if directed at "apologists" in general, as opposed to VUK in particular; and at first that's what I thought you were doing.

[Jonah]

One thing I note is that there is a habit on western gentiles to create a rather homogenized smoothed out revisionist history of the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict without regard to topography of violence over the decades. There is this tendency to boil it down to just two equally unreasonable sides who use the same tactics...and it just seems to go on and on, etc.

Israel gets no credit for going to the bargaining table for real, and Arafat walking away...for no other reason than Arafat could not envision his own future existence as a legitimate statesman.

Israel does not get a break on the fact that the two Intifadas and the Hamas era are particular political changes and spikes in the level of violence and war on Israel. Perhaps the gentile west doesn't get how a new war of suicide bombs on Jerusalem buses is as devastating as a Yom Kippur War, but it is. The Security Fence is there for a reason and it has worked.

There have been more stable times. When I was in college, one time I was in Jerusalem. I was walking on the ramparts of the Old City wall until I came to Jaffa Gate where the IDF always keeps a lookout. They've taken away the stairs from the top of the rampart down to the mid-level, I suppose just to slow anyone who is doing wrong. Anyway, I got to the end of the rampart at the gate and met a young IDF soldier my age. He was quite courteous. He hopped down from the rampart to the mid-level below so that he could help brace me hopping down myself because there where no stairs, and in doing so, he gave me his rifle to hold while he hopped down...and then I handed him his rifle back. And I was like Gomer Pyle from Mayberry going GOLLLLLLLY.

After college I went to graduate school in Washington, D.C. at a well known foreign service school...there are several. There I was in Middle East Studies. In the Department, I became involved with a project to write a book on Human Rights in the Middle East, and it was my job to do the chapter on Israel and the Occupied Territories. The criteria used to judge human rights for all the chapters was infant mortality, health, and access to education. My work for the book was also to be used for my thesis. The Department was decidedly pro-Palestinian. My goal was to write an Joe Friday, just the facts document. I think I succeeded in that. I used a lot of data that generally came out that Arabs who were Israeli citizens were better off than Arabs in the Occupied Territories, but those in the Occupied Territories were better off than Palestinians in the adjacent Arab states. In my chapter, I was critical of Ariel Sharon who had already demonstrated himself to be heavy-handed as Agriculture Minister. He was a very good general, but he seemed to assume that a military method would work in civilian government. One goofy thing he did was to force Bedouin into settled pre-fab villages around Beersheva. Basically, a lot of liberal Jews have had problems with Sharon. In the end, Sharon should be given credit for Sharon having problems with Sharon. In the end, he had to conclude that he was wrong about his settlement policy.

Politics have details. And Israel hardly ever gets credit for the details.

As for my chapter. lol. My Syrian advisor simply said "A very balanced presentation". He put an A on the thesis, but the chapter was never published. lol

[Pastor4Jesus]

What is your opinion of Hamas being called to the ICC?

Is the amount of force used by Israel a war crime or justified retaliation?

I think that Israel demonstrated what a modern army can do. They had to, or allow their children to eat the Hamas rockets. While Israel may have strengthen Hamas in these attacks (by those that sympathize with the terrorists) they were a necessary evil and may of even been the calm before a real storm.

I truly hope that is not the case...

The real problem is that there should be peace and peace won't occur until the Christ returns at Armageddon, because we humans can not suck it up and apply the simple teachings of God.

p4jc

[Pastor4Jesus]

The dull disgusting drumbeat continues ...

You think it is disgusting for me to state that I am against Hamas/Hezbollah, but also at the same time state that I believe Israel are being too heavy handed?

Personally, I find it disgusting that you are seemingly dismissive of Israel's actions. We clearly differ wildly in our opinions.

I have only read several of your posts and feel you are right on track brother. I have to support Israel though, for several reasons. Nevertheless it seems there is no right answer. Just as the bible foretold.

p4jc

[tatty]

Ok fair enough - I stand corrected on the location of the shelling (albeit by a matter of metres).

So the shells landed just outside the school. So? It's pretty risky and disrespectful to shell just outside of a school - and 43 civilians were still killed. Killing civialians is in violation of international law.

Like I said, I think thats enough for a trial at least.

So, you think Tony Blair and George Bush jr should be put on trial for killing civilians in Iraq?

What triggered the attack was shoulder fired missiles being launched from that area.

It violates international law if a nation kills civilians. If someone breaks that law, punishment should result - that is how laws work, they have to be enforced.

It doesnt seem that law is being enforced, period, in any conflict around the world, period.

You have state sovereignty to thank for that. How can you enforce laws a state isn't obligated to obey? Even if they are signatories to the Geneva Convention, a state can't be made to comply, or respond to a judicial summons.

[VermilionUK]

You have state sovereignty to thank for that. How can you enforce laws a state isn't obligated to obey? Even if they are signatories to the Geneva Convention, a state can't be made to comply, or respond to a judicial summons.

What would you suggest would be a better way of ensuring justice? How can a country/nation be held accountable for something it does not consider a crime?

[tatty]

You have state sovereignty to thank for that. How can you enforce laws a state isn't obligated to obey? Even if they are signatories to the Geneva Convention, a state can't be made to comply, or respond to a judicial summons.

What would you suggest would be a better way of ensuring justice? How can a country/nation be held accountable for something it does not consider a crime?

Oh no, I'm not suggesting I know a better way. international law and the UN is just a moral authority. So I guess the world needs to wait for the nation's leaders to WANT to make peace. Throughout the whole conflict one side has offered peace at one time or another, it's just a matter of time till they both want peace at the same time. Even then there are the extremests who will do something to disturb the balance, like with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.

[cnorman18]

....So I guess the world needs to wait for the nation's leaders to WANT to make peace. Throughout the whole conflict one side has offered peace at one time or another, it's just a matter of time till they both want peace at the same time....

Whoops, there's that old "moral equivalence" claim again, as if both sides were equally at fault.

One difference (among others) between the two sides has not been noted here: Arabs have lived in Israel, as full, voting citizens who buy and sell homes and land, operate businesses, and even serve in the Knesset and the IDF, from 1948 onward. That's called "living together in peace."

On the other hand, the Palestinian terror organizations insist that the West Bank and Gaza (and, indeed, the entire Mideast) be Judenfrei, "Jew-free," just as Hitler tried to make Europe. And still it is the Israelis who are castigated as "racist."

Israel has wanted peace since the beginning. Israel still wants peace.

What does Hamas want? It's in their charter: the complete destruction and elimination of Israel and the death or expulsion of every Jew in the Middle East.

One side wants peace. The other side wants total annihilation. Let's keep that in mind as we throw our facile judgments around.

[VermilionUK]

Israel has wanted peace since the beginning. Israel still wants peace.

What does Hamas want? It's in their charter: the complete destruction and elimination of Israel and the death or expulsion of every Jew in the Middle East.

One side wants peace. The other side wants total annihilation. Let's keep that in mind as we throw our facile judgments around.

The problem is that the terms for peace are different on both sides. The Arabs/Palestinian Arabs feel as though they have been forced out of their land, they feel as though a country was made within their land, and so want that land back. Israel also wants peace, and have made efforts, such as working to develop the PNA (Palestinian National Authority) to govern over the West bank and Gaza strip.

The problem is that it's still with Israeli supervision, and so even though on paper the Palestinians have a body to govern their own affairs, in reality, they don't.

On a side note, what are people's thoughts on this:


I think it's interesting, considering the man in question was a member of the IAF, and so we get a real insider's view...