Israeli troops admit murder and pillaging in Gaza

blatantninja said:

Well to be fair, Hamas targets both. Their rocket attacks are more random in where they fall and generally hit civilian areas, but they regularly attack Israeli soldiers as well (not that often successfully).

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They haven't attacked IDF targets since the Gaza wall went up for a very simple reason: they can't. Their rockets are so inaccurate they can only hit a target the size of a town some of the time. When Israel was still occupying Gaza, they showed a strong preference for military targets, and got rather creative at hitting them too. They even destroyed a couple of main battle tanks by scoping out their patrol routes, burying a water boiler filled with explosives in a road on them, and detonating it when the tank was on top.

Prime Junta said:

They haven't attacked IDF targets since the Gaza wall went up for a very simple reason: they can't. Their rockets are so inaccurate they can only hit a target the size of a town some of the time. When Israel was still occupying Gaza, they showed a strong preference for military targets, and got rather creative at hitting them too. They even destroyed a couple of main battle tanks by scoping out their patrol routes, burying a water boiler filled with explosives in a road on them, and detonating it when the tank was on top.

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That's kind of my point. They've attacked military targets when they are able, but now it's gotten to where they are just lashing out where ever they can. In essence, they are simply fighting the only war they can, not going out with a specific intent of attacking civilians first and foremost.

blatantninja said:

That's kind of my point. They've attacked military targets when they are able, but now it's gotten to where they are just lashing out where ever they can. In essence, they are simply fighting the only war they can, not going out with a specific intent of attacking civilians first and foremost.

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Yup. Also being the de jure government as opposed to a purely terrorist organization with no responsibilities has probably played some role in their conduct as well; hence their 2005 unilateral ceasefire.

It's the palestinians(HAMAAS) fault that civilians are getting attacked. They attacked from civilian locations so that the israeli troops wouldnt fire back. Now they are fed up and are attacking civilian targets. If Hamas stuck to proper rules of engagement this wouldnt have happened,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LGubwghyEw

A small youtube vid of it.

Damian Mahadevan said:

It's the palestinians(HAMAAS) fault that civilians are getting attacked. They attacked from civilian locations so that the israeli troops wouldnt fire back. Now they are fed up and are attacking civilian targets. If Hamas stuck to proper rules of engagement this wouldnt have happened,

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A few points to make...

Pretty much the whole of Gaza is a civilian location, as far as I know there's no where Hamas could launch an attack from that wouldn't result in civilian casualties via IDF retaliation (mind you, I don't approve of launching attacks from schools/hospitals/mosques/etc). I'm also fairly sure (I'll check on this if anyone wants me to) that the Palestinian territories/Hamas are not in any way signatories to the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, or any other jus in bello agreements except for the UN Charter.

These agreements are obviously designed to favor the modern nation-state. If you take Israel, which has a highly trained and well-equipped modern Western military, it will wipe the floor with any other military in the region (see it's conflicts with the other states in the region). Despite the illegality or immorality of it, Hamas knows it would never beat Israel in a straight-up traditional military conflict so they have to resort to what they have. That's the problem with asymmetric warfare; although, as a side note, Hamas has stopped suicide bombing civilian targets in Israel since 2005.

One of my professors back at college, a Palestinian Christian, was actually forced out of his home in Jerusalem during the six-day war in 1967 as a child. You wouldn't have to look hard to find accounts of Israeli atrocities to counter the ones that come from Hamas. There's no clear-cut way to assign blame - both sides have legitimate grievances and both sides have done really horrible things.

blatantninja said:

Sometimes. They certainly give more prominence with casualties, but you hear a lot about a bomb going off but no one being hurt.

Well to be fair, Hamas targets both. Their rocket attacks are more random in where they fall and generally hit civilian areas, but they regularly attack Israeli soldiers as well (not that often successfully).

Well, that is the issue here. I don't expect front page news when Israel kills a Hamas fighter. However, when their soldiers target civilians, as they clearly did in these reports, that should be front page news. And Israel blew the ever living hell out of a school during the Gaza insurrection. They killed a lot of children in the process. IIRC they originally said it was an errant strike, then claimed they were being fired upon from the location. To be fair, that was covered quite a bit in the news here.

From the article:


That is a hell of a lot of 'collateral' damage for what is one of the most advanced militaries in the world. It's pretty obvious that a large chunk of these were deliberate attacks, which makes them no better than the people lobbing rockets into civilian Israeli populations.

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First of all, that is not a whole lot of collateral damage in the most densely populated place in the world.
Second and very important too is the fact that all of that did get the front page and were on all the news reports, so your point is very well moot.

blatantninja said:

You obviously missed what I wrote:

Israeli civilians killed in rocket attacks = at least a small blurb on front page with larger article inside

Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli soldiers = not even a mention on the front page, small article buried inside of paper.

That's a difference.

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My quote was about magerette and this article : http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/world/middleeast/20gaza.html?_r=2&ref=world

blatantninja said:

I'm not agreeing with everything you quote, but if you think that AIPAC doesn't hold significant influence over a large number of prominent politicians, you have no clue about American politics.

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So you believe that the US would do whatever AIPAC commands them to do ?
Give me a break! AIPAC is a lobby group like all others and they have influence, but if the majority of the people would actually be against it and there would be no interest for the US in it, then the US would certainly not back Israel.

Israel however is being backed by much more than just AIPAC, but by lots of conservative (right) republicans and still many democrats too. A lot of the American people support Israel as people are afraid of losing one of the Middle East's allies to the US.

If many people were actually against it then yes, politicians would very easily change their minds and stop supporting Israel so much.

Rithrandil said:

Fine, yes, the being labeled an anti-Semite bit was an exaggeration. But you'll definitely be shut out of the government if you express any disdain for Israeli tactics and strategy.

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I'm sure that wouldn't be the only reason why you'd be shut out if that's even remotely the case.

Rithrandil said:

Actually it would be in our best interest to drop Israel like a bad habit (which is what the State Department said when Israel was created). The Arabs/Middle East loved us before we supported Israel. We've supported it because of religious convictions and political necessity.

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Then if you drop Israel, just like that, you'd not only be hated by the Arab world, but none of your Eastern European allies would even trust you anymore as whenever a situation gets coarse you'll abandon them, as is actually what happened in Georgia.

The Arab world will keep hating you since you still have troops not only in Iraq but Afghanistan as well.

I have no idea why you're talking about the creation of Israel now, but alright.

blatantninja said:

That's kind of my point. They've attacked military targets when they are able, but now it's gotten to where they are just lashing out where ever they can. In essence, they are simply fighting the only war they can, not going out with a specific intent of attacking civilians first and foremost.

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What about the suicide bombings until they were blocked by walls and check-points ?
I think I even once posted a list of Hamas suicide bombings since the Oslo Accords up until the start of the Intifada.

Don't make them look any better than they are. They kill civilians and military targets as if they were the same and they'll go for the most casualties whenever they can.

Damian Mahadevan said:

It's the palestinians(HAMAAS) fault that civilians are getting attacked. They attacked from civilian locations so that the israeli troops wouldnt fire back. Now they are fed up and are attacking civilian targets. If Hamas stuck to proper rules of engagement this wouldnt have happened,

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They can't stick to proper rules of engagement, they'd be dead a long time ago if they did. It's not a viable option for them, so your point is moot.

Rithrandil said:

A few points to make...

Pretty much the whole of Gaza is a civilian location, as far as I know there's no where Hamas could launch an attack from that wouldn't result in civilian casualties via IDF retaliation (mind you, I don't approve of launching attacks from schools/hospitals/mosques/etc). I'm also fairly sure (I'll check on this if anyone wants me to) that the Palestinian territories/Hamas are not in any way signatories to the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, or any other jus in bello agreements except for the UN Charter.

These agreements are obviously designed to favor the modern nation-state. If you take Israel, which has a highly trained and well-equipped modern Western military, it will wipe the floor with any other military in the region (see it's conflicts with the other states in the region). Despite the illegality or immorality of it, Hamas knows it would never beat Israel in a straight-up traditional military conflict so they have to resort to what they have. That's the problem with asymmetric warfare; although, as a side note, Hamas has stopped suicide bombing civilian targets in Israel since 2005.

One of my professors back at college, a Palestinian Christian, was actually forced out of his home in Jerusalem during the six-day war in 1967 as a child. You wouldn't have to look hard to find accounts of Israeli atrocities to counter the ones that come from Hamas. There's no clear-cut way to assign blame - both sides have legitimate grievances and both sides have done really horrible things.

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Better said than me.

So what if they will lose if they stuck to rules of engagement, my point is that fi you are willing to berak them it is unfair to expect and opposition not to do the same. It is like if you got into a fist fight in school and the other kid pulls out a knife, you either back off and concede defeat or pull out your own knife. Same applies here. Clearly Israel arent willing to concede defeat.

Rithrandil said:

Pretty much the whole of Gaza is a civilian location, as far as I know there's no where Hamas could launch an attack from that wouldn't result in civilian casualties via IDF retaliation (mind you, I don't approve of launching attacks from schools/hospitals/mosques/etc). I'm also fairly sure (I'll check on this if anyone wants me to) that the Palestinian territories/Hamas are not in any way signatories to the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Conventions, or any other jus in bello agreements except for the UN Charter.

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Israel doesn't even recognize Hamas as a legitimate entity. If it doesn't exist, it can't be a signatory to any agreements whatsoever.

I'm glad to have you here, Rithrandil, by the way. Sometimes arguing this point has felt like an uphill battle, although I think there has been some kind of sea change in the atmosphere since 2006. It's a shame the prospects for peace have become ever more remote, though.

Damian Mahadevan said:

So what if they will lose if they stuck to rules of engagement, my point is that fi you are willing to berak them it is unfair to expect and opposition not to do the same. It is like if you got into a fist fight in school and the other kid pulls out a knife, you either back off and concede defeat or pull out your own knife. Same applies here. Clearly Israel arent willing to concede defeat.

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Except that that's a completely false analogy, because it portrays the power relations as symmetrical.

We don't have two kids in a schoolyard here. We have a death commando with a mastery of krav maga wielding a katana forged by Hattori Hanzo on one side, and an underfed street punk with a shiv he's made from a bit of broken glass, a piece of tire, and some wire on the other. If the street punk fights by "the rules," the martial artist will simply slice his head clean off with one stroke of the sword. So he hides in the ruins of his street and throws rocks instead.

Then martial arts master goes and beats up the punk's mom, dad, brother, sister, and uncle because he can't get at the punk, and then burns down their house for good measure. That's both wrong and ineffective.

Prime Junta said:

Except that that's a completely false analogy, because it portrays the power relations as symmetrical.

We don't have two kids in a schoolyard here. We have a death commando with a mastery of krav maga wielding a katana forged by Hattori Hanzo on one side, and an underfed street punk with a shiv he's made from a bit of broken glass, a piece of tire, and some wire on the other. If the street punk fights by "the rules," the martial artist will simply slice his head clean off with one stroke of the sword. So he hides in the ruins of his street and throws rocks instead.

Then martial arts master goes and beats up the punk's mom, dad, brother, sister, and uncle because he can't get at the punk, and then burns down their house for good measure. That's both wrong and ineffective.

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Well how long does he have to put up with the rock throwing, they put up with their attacks for so long before they attacked. And civilians did put Hamas into power. So they only got themselves to blame. I wouldnt argue against the
Palestinians if they didnt.

Damian Mahadevan said:

Well how long does he have to put up with the rock throwing, they put up with their attacks for so long before they attacked. And civilians did put Hamas into power. So they only got themselves to blame. I wouldnt argue against the
Palestinians if they didnt.

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So, in your morality, it *is* OK for the martial arts master to beat up the punk's family and burn down his home, if he's not able to get at the punk himself?

Glad we got *that* straight.

What was the bit about turning the other cheek and loving your enemy again, by the way? Or was it some other religion than the one you're professing, perhaps?

Damian Mahadevan said:

Well how long does he have to put up with the rock throwing, they put up with their attacks for so long before they attacked. And civilians did put Hamas into power. So they only got themselves to blame. I wouldnt argue against the
Palestinians if they didnt.

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What? Israel completely occupied and settled Gaza and the West Bank for decades. I'm not excusing what Hamas does here, but you really need to read into the history of what actually happened. Both sides have done some really really bad things. And the vote for Hamas was more of a vote against Fatah than anything else. Besides, if you live in Gaza and you get sick, do you go to the government or private hospital? No, you go to the Hamas hospital. You send your kid to the Hamas school, and so on. Hamas provides most of the few social services these people have access to, so while Hamas may be a pretty brutal group of thugs, they're all the Palestinians have.

It wasn't the Palestinians or Hamas that issued the Balfour declaration or established Israel. If you want to look at the Israeli side, it's littered with clear declarations similar to America's Manifest Destiny. God gave us this land, etc etc etc.

There's also something called a proportional response. To simplify that greatly, a proportional response would be if someone shoved me to the ground, I get up and shove him back; the non-proportional response (what Israel has done in the past) would be if I went and ran over his dog with a car. I agree Israel needed to do something about the rocket attacks as well as the kidnapping of their soldiers by Hamas and Hezbollah (which led to the 2006 summer war). However, there were a good deal of experts who believed Israel's responses in both cases were *not* proportional. They eviscerated the civilian infrastructure in central/northern Lebanon to fight a threat that was primarily operating out of Southern Lebanon in the case of the 2006 Hezbollah war. In this conflict they pulverized Gaza for about a month (killing about 1300) to stop attacks that killed roughly a dozen of their own civilians.

You can't give the Israelis a free pass on this one. They're seeing the logical consequences of actions of the past 50 years. Just hope this problem is solved soon, there is increasing evidence that the youth of Israel (as well as that of the Palestinians) are becoming even more radical than their parents are.