40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

[truthpaste]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

I see Wes Streeting has decided 35,000 + dead at the hands of the Israeli Occupation Forces is enough (if you count the thousands of children and their families buried under the rubble and not yet in the 'dead' column).

He was OK with 25,000. But now Israel has gone too far! Starmer agrees with him (sort of).

Fantastic to have such principled people leading the main political opposition.

Who chose where the battle would take place?

[Dorcus]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

Hear hear!

Streeting is repugnant. He's an embarrassment.

[jeepster]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

If that's aimed at me, oh, heck

No at Stevo :thumbup:

[jon1959]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

Who chose where the battle would take place?

Well it wasn't your dyslexic dog, so the only possible answer is Israel - the state that has occupied most Palestinian land since 1967 (if not 1948) and (with a little help from Egypt) turned Gaza into an open air prison for 2.3m people. The location, scale, and deliberately indiscriminate nature of the genocidal revenge attack since 7 October is all Israel.

No excuses for any of the atrocities carried out by Hamas or others who crossed the fence on 7 October - but the last four and a half months of mass murder and ethnic cleansing were not carried out by Hamas.

It wasn't so long ago that you were very loud and proud of Israel's drive to pen, humiliate, dispossess, imprison without trial and kill any Palestinians who remained on the land wanted for Greater Israel. You kept talking about a real estate deal between a supernatural being and his 'chosen people' as described in the Old Testament - a book you seem to treat as 100% literally true. Your main comment on the recent history of ethnic cleansing and apartheid was that Israel was showing 'restraint' (your word if I remember correctly).

They are not showing restraint now (they never were) but are still intent on blaming someone else for their crimes. As are you.

[truthpaste]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

Well it wasn't your dyslexic dog, so the only possible answer is Israel - the state that has occupied most Palestinian land since 1967 (if not 1948) and (with a little help from Egypt) turned Gaza into an open air prison for 2.3m people. The location, scale, and deliberately indiscriminate nature of the genocidal revenge attack since 7 October is all Israel.

No excuses for any of the atrocities carried out by Hamas or others who crossed the fence on 7 October - but the last four and a half months of mass murder and ethnic cleansing were not carried out by Hamas.

It wasn't so long ago that you were very loud and proud of Israel's drive to pen, humiliate, dispossess, imprison without trial and kill any Palestinians who remained on the land wanted for Greater Israel. You kept talking about a real estate deal between a supernatural being and his 'chosen people' as described in the Old Testament - a book you seem to treat as 100% literally true. Your main comment on the recent history of ethnic cleansing and apartheid was that Israel was showing 'restraint' (your word if I remember correctly).

They are not showing restraint now (they never were) but are still intent on blaming someone else for their crimes. As are you.

No excuses for any of the atrocities carried out by Hamas or others who crossed the fence on 7 October - but the last four and a half months of mass murder and ethnic cleansing were not carried out by Hamas.

Well thanks for acknowledging the hideous spark to this conflict. While Hamas hasn't physically caused most of the deaths of the citizens who voted them into power, they DID decide that the hospitals and tunnels (paid for by their citizens and other less peaceable muslims across the middle east) would be the key areas of conflict.
You know very well that if the civilians were living away from the military bases etc and the hostages were away from them too, then the only casualities would be hamas themselves. But just like Saddam, they are to be used to create the sort of reaction that you and so many others have predictably provided.

....the Old Testament - a book you seem to treat as 100% literally true.

Wrong again, I read the Bible like any other book in it's given context. Some parts are actual history, other parts are poetry and illustrative. The context is always clearly defined, and only people who dive into and out of a statement in isolation will get confused.

[jon1959]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68318856

In 2019, Mr Netanyahu told colleagues in his ruling Likud party: "Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas… This is part of our strategy - to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank."

Keeping Hamas strong enough to be an effective rival to Fatah - its West Bank rival - would prevent the possibility of a "unified Palestinian leadership with whom you would have to negotiate some kind of final settlement", says Khaled Elgindy, senior fellow on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington DC.

[jon1959]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

[COLOR="#B22222"]

Well thanks for acknowledging the hideous spark to this conflict. While Hamas hasn't physically caused most of the deaths of the citizens who voted them into power, they DID decide that the hospitals and tunnels (paid for by their citizens and other less peaceable muslims across the middle east) would be the key areas of conflict.

You know very well that if the civilians were living away from the military bases etc and the hostages were away from them too, then the only casualities would be hamas themselves. But just like Saddam, they are to be used to create the sort of reaction that you and so many others have predictably provided.

I don't agree that 7 October was the spark to this conflict at all. It was a major escalation (or reaction) to a decades long series of sparks (or conflagrations), most of them started by Israel as part of its ideological drive for a Greater Israel.

Most of the citizens killed by Israel since 7 October did not elect Hamas into power in 2006-7. They were children or not born then. A third of the victims of Israeli genocidal attacks in Gaza were children at the time they were crushed, dismembered or burned to death under their bombs, shells and rockets.

Yes Hamas built a lot of tunnels (although some like under the Gaza City hospital were Israeli built 20 years ago) and yes they have their fighters in areas where there are a lot of civilians. That is inevitable in one of the most congested places on earth where Israel (with Egyptian help in the south) has blockaded the population for over 17 years. This is not a symmetrical conflict. Hamas' military wing is an underground militia with significant small arms from Qatar and Iran, but it faces one of the largest and best equipped (nuclear) armies in the world - one that is being re-armed every month by the USA on a massive scale. In October Hamas had about 30,000 fighters and Israel had 170,000 troops backed by another 465,000 reservists.

I do not agree that in an imagined world where Hamas fighters could separate themselves from civilians there would have been no civilian deaths from the IDF/IOF. I posted the article below at the start of January, where Paul Rodgers explains the evolution of Israeli military thinking from the pogroms and ethnic cleansing of 1948 through to the current Dahiya doctrine, used in the 2006 Lebanon war.

Destruction of homes and infrastructure for power and clean water (along with hospitals, mosques, churches, UN refuges etc) and civilian deaths to (demoralise the enemy fighters) is intentional. Not some kind of regrettable 'collateral damage'.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/05/israel-disproportionate-force-tactic-infrastructure-economy-civilian-casualties

Hamas is a deeply conservative, authoritarian organisation and has used internal violence as well as military violence against Israeli targets that spilled over into atrocities on the day of the attack. I also agree with your claim that the Hamas leadership (in Gaza and those in relative safely elsewhere) were prepared to see Israel impose collective punishment on the innocent civilians of Gaza in reprisals in the hope that would refocus the attention of the world on Palestinians' plight. Israel has always done that. I suspect they were surprised by the damage they were able to do on 7 October, but I also doubt they planned to unleash an Israeli genocide on the population of Gaza. I think both parties miscalculated at the start of this chapter of violence.

However only one side is driving the mass murder, expulsions, starvation, disease and injuries now. They continue to point the finger everywhere else (including at the UN and most of the rest of the world who don't swallow their propaganda).

But the constant repetition of lies and deflection does, to use your words, 'create the sort of reaction that you and so many others have predictably provided'.

[JamesWales]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

Good programme on Hamas on BBC1 Panorama now. Finances, atrocities etc

[stevo]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

A ‘good’ programme on the lefty BBC? Whatever next!

[jon1959]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

Tomorrow's parliamentary debate on Gaza where Starmer is sweating over an even bigger revolt from his MPs than last time.

The solution:

Labour calling for 'immediate humanitarian ceasefire' in Gaza as alternative to SNP's call for 'immediate ceasefire'

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/feb/20/post-office-horizon-scandal-conservatives-kemi-badenoch-rishi-sunak-uk-politics-live

Absolutely pathetic!

[jon1959]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

Good programme on Hamas on BBC1 Panorama now. Finances, atrocities etc

Not watched it yet (on iPlayer?).

But see it is made by John Ware - so I expect to see his usual inate hostility to the Palestinians and their supporters, and his usual whitewash of Israel and their supporters.

He is a serious and experienced journalist but over time has built up so much baggage - and for many is still associated with his recent Panorama hatchet job on Labour under Corbyn. I know you won't agree with me on that, but I think he has already had too much of a licence-fee funded platform to push his warped agenda.

[truthpaste]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

I don't agree that 7 October was the spark to this conflict at all. It was a major escalation (or reaction) to a decades long series of sparks (or conflagrations), most of them started by Israel as part of its ideological drive for a Greater Israel.

Most of the citizens killed by Israel since 7 October did not elect Hamas into power in 2006-7. They were children or not born then. A third of the victims of Israeli genocidal attacks in Gaza were children at the time they were crushed, dismembered or burned to death under their bombs, shells and rockets.

Yes Hamas built a lot of tunnels (although some like under the Gaza City hospital were Israeli built 20 years ago) and yes they have their fighters in areas where there are a lot of civilians. That is inevitable in one of the most congested places on earth where Israel (with Egyptian help in the south) has blockaded the population for over 17 years. This is not a symmetrical conflict. Hamas' military wing is an underground militia with significant small arms from Qatar and Iran, but it faces one of the largest and best equipped (nuclear) armies in the world - one that is being re-armed every month by the USA on a massive scale. In October Hamas had about 30,000 fighters and Israel had 170,000 troops backed by another 465,000 reservists.

I do not agree that in an imagined world where Hamas fighters could separate themselves from civilians there would have been no civilian deaths from the IDF/IOF. I posted the article below at the start of January, where Paul Rodgers explains the evolution of Israeli military thinking from the pogroms and ethnic cleansing of 1948 through to the current Dahiya doctrine, used in the 2006 Lebanon war.

Destruction of homes and infrastructure for power and clean water (along with hospitals, mosques, churches, UN refuges etc) and civilian deaths to (demoralise the enemy fighters) is intentional. Not some kind of regrettable 'collateral damage'.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/05/israel-disproportionate-force-tactic-infrastructure-economy-civilian-casualties

Hamas is a deeply conservative, authoritarian organisation and has used internal violence as well as military violence against Israeli targets that spilled over into atrocities on the day of the attack. I also agree with your claim that the Hamas leadership (in Gaza and those in relative safely elsewhere) were prepared to see Israel impose collective punishment on the innocent civilians of Gaza in reprisals in the hope that would refocus the attention of the world on Palestinians' plight. Israel has always done that. I suspect they were surprised by the damage they were able to do on 7 October, but I also doubt they planned to unleash an Israeli genocide on the population of Gaza. I think both parties miscalculated at the start of this chapter of violence.

However only one side is driving the mass murder, expulsions, starvation, disease and injuries now. They continue to point the finger everywhere else (including at the UN and most of the rest of the world who don't swallow their propaganda).

But the constant repetition of lies and deflection does, to use your words, 'create the sort of reaction that you and so many others have predictably provided'.

We will see where the lies have come and what the bigger picture is in a coming day.
You have your view and I have my own.
Time will tell.

[jon1959]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

https://www.bloomsbury.org.uk/christ-under-the-rubble-a-vigil-for-gaza/

[stevo]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

It would be the Christian thing to do.

[stevo]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

Just looking at today's front pages. Why are the right-wing papers describing the Big Ben protest as antisemitic? Genuine question.