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!
Wow. I suppose it must be very non-PC these days then to even dare to question the role of Hamas in the destruction of Palestine as you immediately label me as a crass apologist for the IDF. Lets be straight here – both sides have blood on their hands and I condemn them both.

Do you deny then that Hamas fighters are hiding in (or under) buildings housing ordinary Palestinians? You admit that Hamas use violence and intimidation to maintain their position, so should it be a surprise that they would use such intimidation to hide behind civilians in their homes, schools and hospitals? Of course they have a grievance against Israel for all the years of suppression but they should have known full well what the Israeli response to the events of October 2023 would be.

The whole situation is a tragedy and I cannot see any end to it. I watch Al Jazeera most days and it breaks my heart to see, in particular, the children who are suffering and traumatised by the daily onslaught. (This is why I have written to my M.P. about some kind of Kinder-transport for orphaned Palestinian into European countries including the U.K. but only got a negative response sadly).