Quote Originally Posted by jon1959 View Post
I didn't have you down as such a crass apologist for the perpetrators of daily war crimes and genocide!

Hamas and the other Islamist organisations are often violent and always authoritarian. They forced the secular Fatah/PLO out of Gaza (with plenty of help from Likud and especially Netanyahu doing their 'divide and rule' act) and have at times used intimidation and violence to maintain their position. They were guilty of war crimes on 7 October 2023. But Hamas is part of the population of Gaza. There is no where else for them to go. They are doctors, nurses, police, administrators, sewage workers and also fighters. They are not embedded (as a journalist might be), they are part of an overcrowded and strangled concentration camp.

When it comes to the daily killing (dismembering, burning, crushing) of Palestinian civilians (especially the 15,000 plus children) it is 100% down to the actions of Israel - the IDF/IOF. And there is a mountain of evidence that this is not 'just' down to mistakes, or 'collateral damage' where murdering a hundred non-combatants is acceptable if there is a chance of also killing a Palestinian fighter. It is clear that many of these civilian deaths are the result of a government policy of killing, terrorising and making life impossible in order to clear Gaza for Israeli Jewish occupation. The ruling coalition have not been shy of boasting about this aim.

Israel has been 'mowing the grass' in Gaza for decades - remember the white phosphorus, the murder of kids playing football on the beach, the bombing of residential blocks - and has been murdering (through settlers or the IDF) in increasing numbers on the West Bank as part of its ethnic cleansing plans (no Hamas there).

Hamas and Islamic Jihad are guilty of their crimes and Israel is guilty of its crimes. And Israel (with its UK/US/German supplied arms) is already at 40x the death toll achieved by Hamas. So no - the corpses of Palestinian children in their mothers arms are not there because of the actions of Hamas. To pretend that is dishonest and shameful!
Not a rational response to Gofers comment.
I know it's warm today, but overheating and going OTT on what is a reasonable comment is pointless.