Israel, it's about time!

[WolfDGrey]

You have a problem with threat assessment.

Most people who live in safe countries have that problem. They can't imagine how it is since they never felt it. That explains many people's blurbs and yapping trough the monitor while in the safety of his home. I bet that if a grenade would explode near their house every few days they would cure instantly and think about their lives in other ways.

[Nemo]

Who is that comment directed at, Wolf?

[Attila]

If you give isreal back to palestine i expect Australia to be given back to the Aboriginals.
The fact of the story is Religion = an amazing prestigious gobble of golden crap.
Israel did what they had to - to survive. That's the first instinct of any human being. Don't blame the brits blame hitler if anything.

Fact remains the country belong to a group of people who wish to live in peace, stop the resistance get on with your lives. Israel is a tiny block of land, arabs get over it and especially get over your fictional character bob.

[Mourhelm]

Since the soldier at the bus station has a military purpose [firing bullets], then the soldier is a military target. So Israel is responsible for any civilian deaths that may happen when the soldier gets hit. Or that's what we get if we follow your logic.

A soldier in a bus station has no immediate military purpose besides getting home or to his base. He is not actively fires his weapon (and besides, many soldiers don't take their weapons home with them). Also, a gun is hardly a rocket that can reach Palestinian cities.

If a terrorist blows up a bus full of soldiers or drives a car through a bus stop filled with soldiers (as happened in the past near Israeli bases) it is a legitimate attack on the Israeli military. Sadly, Hamas mostly aims at civilian and by chance kills a few soldiers and not the other way around.

Israel and it's oh-so-mighty military has the power to go in to the city, find the artillery and destroy it. Hamas does not have the power to go into Israel and do diddly-squat.

Now I understand why I can't reach you. You think that Hamas can't do nothing and is no danger to Israel. I invite you to live a year in our bombed cities and get the feel of the "diddly-squat" that Hamas is doing.

Israel wants to stop the "diddly-squat" Hamas is doing, so it attacks their artillery by air strikes and ground forces.

And what's more important? The safety of your soldiers [who swore to protect their country and the purpose of their existence is to take care of such problems] or the safety of your civilians?

The safety of our civilians of course. If we valued the life of our soldiers more than the life of our civilians, we wouldn't have sent our soldiers into Gaza where we know they are more likely to get hurt.

Hamas should have the same priorities and put its civilians in a safe place instead of hiding behind them.

If they had value for their own people's lives, Hamas would buy a few less rockets and build some shelters for its civilian population, for cases like this.

Sadly, I believe that even if they had shelters Hamas would have used them cynically as weapon depots as well.

But of course, the question that inevitably pops up in the mind is this: are the lives of a few hundred Palestinian civilians more important than the lives of your own soldiers? And the answer to that, makes all the difference in the world.

It all depends on cost and effect. If Israel didn't value the lives of Palestinian civilians it would just keep air striking Gaza until there was nothing and no-one left.

After experts assess the risk for civilian and military casualties (according to intelligence) they make the decision of what kind of method to use (air strikes, artillery fire or ground attack).

EDIT:
allonons, when you quote all that about Israeli civilians dying, let's see how many of them have relatives in the Israeli Army. While they're off bombing the palestinians, their families are at home dying and paying the price for their aggression.

As I understand, allonons's point was not that the families deserve to die, but that Hamas doesn't protect its people. The terrorists tell their families to stay in the danger zone so when they die Hamas could play the victim showing more civilian deaths.

The argument can go both ways. And both ways are stupid. No law says you are to punish the child for his father's crimes.

I agree. Civilians should be kept away from the fighting. That's why Israel had to take action. Hamas has been targeting Israeli civilians for long enough (eight years!).

(Edit: rephrased an unclear sentence)

[stoffi]

You people who quote others about the women and children please give me a break,I want identification ...lets see how many of these women and children are the family of the hamas terrorist....While thier husbands and fathers go hide in tunnels and bunkers they leave thier families home to die and pay the price for thier agressions.

It's sad but true,I wonder if the little virgins who die get 72 little virgins to play with in hamas heaven?


These people are filthy animals and the only thing to do with a dirty filthy rabid animal is to kill it and burn it's diseaed ridden carcass!

You ought to be locked up for opinions like this. I don't really have to say this, but you're a very, very sick person and you need to step out of your christian fanatic, racist world.

[stoffi]

A soldier in a bus station has no immediate military purpose besides getting home or to his base. He is not actively fires his weapon (and besides, many soldiers don't take their weapons home with them). Also, a gun is hardly a rocket that can reach Palestinian cities.

How is then the hamas militant at home a legitimate target? He has no rockets on him, he is eating dinner, playing with his kids. Oh, I see. There are different rules for jews and lower races.






Tonight, Israel bombed a UN school and many refugees hiding there were killed and injured. Israel knew where this school was, and there were no Hamas there. UN runs the school, and they only accept civilians.

Also, today at 10:50 gmt+1, a new market place was bombed. Maybe the carrots looked like rockets, who knows.

That's 2 market places in 2 days bombed and tons of ppl slaughtered. Bombing market places and schools is nothing but terrorism.
Even if there was a Hamas member at that market place, Israel should not have bombed. USA is careful when fighting in Bagdad, ISrael doesn't care.

[Nemo]

Now I understand why I can't reach you. You think that Hamas can't do nothing and is no danger to Israel. I invite you to live a year in our bombed cities and get the feel of the "diddly-squat" that Hamas is doing.

Israel wants to stop the "diddly-squat" Hamas is doing, so it attacks their artillery by air strikes and ground forces.

I was answering your question where you ask:

"If Israel would fire it's artillery from a city, would you call that a civilian target as well? Will you condone Hamas for targeting it?"

I wouldn't condone Hamas targeting it, unless they sent in their infantry and took out the artillery embankments [suppose their situated in market places] and the people operating it, not bomb the civilians that might have been there to, oh, I don't know, buy potatoes.

I don't think Hamas has the power to start an offensive into what is considered to be Israeli soil. Israel does have the power to launch an offensive into Gaza and send in it's infantry.

Israel is supposed to be on the moral high horse, remember? Israel is not getting my approval, because in my eyes it's doing the same thing Hamas does, heedlessly killing civilians with airstrikes, and sugarcoating the pill with weapons depot talk.

As I understand, allonons's point was not that the families deserve to die, but that Hamas doesn't protect its people. The terrorists tell their families to stay in the danger zone so when they die Hamas could play the victim showing more civilian deaths.

No. What he implied was that it's ok to kill civilians [women and children] as long as their family members are in Hamas. He wanted to see ID. He is the perfect example of an extremist. And as you said before, they exist on both sides of the border. It's just that in this scenario, this sort of stuff takes you by surprise.

As for sacrificing their families to play the victims, I think Israel is doing a fine job without the prompting.

[stoffi]

I agree. Civilians should be kept away from the fighting. That's why Israel had to take action. Hamas has been targeting Israeli civilians for long enough (eight years!).

(Edit: rephrased an unclear sentence)

And yet if you look at the casualties on both sides, you will find HUUUUUGE civilian casualties on the palestinian side, while they are minimal on the Israeli side. If Hamas could, they would certainly try to match what Israel is doing, but we gotta deal with reality.
And the reality is that Israel targets palestinian civilians, or doesn't care if they are in the way. Israel kills, Hamas is a small buzzing fly compared to what Israel does.

You try to get sympathy for israeli citizens living in "fear". You don't know what fear is until you have lived in Gaza. You can hide in your bomb shelters while the rockets hit the deserts around you, you can go see a movie, go to the store, visit the hospital, use a welfare system.
The Palestinians can't do any of this. Every day, they live in EXTREME terror of being killed by seemingly random bombing by Israel. Every family has casualties, the children are utterly traumatized, 800-900 children are dead/injured during this week.

And the poor israelis complain about broken windows and splints in doors... They don't really get much sympathy when ppl see what they are doing to the palestinians. The palestinians would give anything to just have a few broken windows and some rockets in the desert. It would be a luxury for them.

So please don't tell us how much we need to feel sorry for israelis, you don't know what fear is.

[Mourhelm]

I was answering your question where you ask:

"If Israel would fire it's artillery from a city, would you call that a civilian target as well? Will you condone Hamas for targeting it?"

I wouldn't condone Hamas targeting it, unless they sent in their infantry and took out the artillery embankments [suppose their situated in market places] and the people operating it, not bomb the civilians that might have been there to, oh, I don't know, buy potatoes.

What I understand you're saying is that if Israel would fire artillery fire on the Gaza strip, without aiming, from a city it will be OK. Hamas can't target it because it's a civilian target and civilian might be killed and they obviously won't survive a ground assault. Israel will be responsible for this kind of attack for sure, but no one in the world will say Hamas should do something about it - it is a civilian target after all.

I disagree with this completely. If you are being attacked you have a right for self defence.

Hamas and the Palestinians know these attacks may bring legitimate Israeli retaliation. They should have thought about it before hand and get their civilians into safety. Instead, they use the civilian population as shields for weapon depots.

I don't think Hamas has the power to start an offensive into what is considered to be Israeli soil.

They've been launching an offensive on Israeli soil for eight years now. If you think launching rockets is not offensive you shouldn't condone Israeli air strikes.

Israel does have the power to launch an offensive into Gaza and send in it's infantry.

FYI, Israel sent infantry into Gaza. But if you think we do this for fun you're extremely wrong.

Israel is supposed to be on the moral high horse, remember? Israel is not getting my approval, because in my eyes it's doing the same thing Hamas does, heedlessly killing civilians with airstrikes, and sugarcoating the pill with weapons depot talk.

Don't hold back your suggestions on how to stop Hamas's threat without any losses (on either side).

If I knew a way to get zero losses on both sides, I would take it.

No. What he implied was that it's ok to kill civilians [women and children] as long as their family members are in Hamas. He wanted to see ID. He is the perfect example of an extremist. And as you said before, they exist on both sides of the border. It's just that in this scenario, this sort of stuff takes you by surprise.

I'm sure he'll explain what he meant.

I think that killing civilians (any, not only women and children) is wrong.

I also think that when you hit a military target, you can't guarantee zero civilian losses. It's impossible to guarantee it when the enemy (Hamas in this case) hides its military installations within civilian population and operates from within civilian population.

As for sacrificing their families to play the victims, I think Israel is doing a fine job without the prompting.

As far as I know, none of the civilians killed on the Israeli side were inside the Gaza strip or in Israeli military installations. All were trying to find the nearest shelter and didn't try to sacrifice themselves.

Also, our military has ordered people to stay in shelters unless they must leave (for example, if their job is absolutely necessary). This order has saved many Israel children since some rockets hit a schools and kinder gardens. If Israel wanted to sacrifice it's population it wouldn't have issued that order.

Israeli civilians are victims of Hamas.

Palestinian civilians are also victims of Hamas, but Hamas presents it as if they are victims of Israel.

[Mourhelm]

And yet if you look at the casualties on both sides, you will find HUUUUUGE civilian casualties on the palestinian side, while they are minimal on the Israeli side. If Hamas could, they would certainly try to match what Israel is doing, but we gotta deal with reality

I know I said I'll ignore you, but this comment is so twisted I have to reply.

Israel protects its civilians in shelters and by this self defence military action. That is why Israel has few (relatively) civilian casualties. Israel also tries to avoid Palestinian casualties as well.

If Hamas had tried to match what Israel is doing you would see fewer civilian casualties on their side too. Sadly, Hamas doesn't try to match what Israel is doing. On the contrary, Hamas tries to increase Israeli civilian casualties and cynically using its own people as human shields instead of protecting them (by building shelters instead of weapon depots for example).

[SnuggleySoft]

If Cuba began sending rockets to America, then damn skippy I'd want us to bomb Cuban military sites.

Yes its a tragedy that civilians are dying. But thats just another reason to hate Hamas. Your acting how Hamas wants you too. They put their people in harm's way on purpose partly for PR. They believe the people killed are martyrs, so they don't really care. Its all for the cause. They just want to build outrage. I think Mourhelm has clearly stated why the attacks are a sad, but necessary, action very well.

[stoffi]

I know I said I'll ignore you, but this comment is so twisted I have to reply.

Israel protects its civilians in shelters and by this self defence military action. That is why Israel has few (relatively) civilian casualties. Israel also tries to avoid Palestinian casualties as well.

If Hamas had tried to match what Israel is doing you would see fewer civilian casualties on their side too. Sadly, Hamas doesn't try to match what Israel is doing. On the contrary, Hamas tries to increase Israeli civilian casualties and cynically using its own people as human shields instead of protecting them (by building shelters instead of weapon depots for example).

The palestinian economy has collapsed long ago because of Israel. There is no economy. They cannot build bomb shelters because they have no resources. Yes, they buy new ammo, just like Israel gets new weapons INSTEAD of tending for the many, many poor ppl in Israel.(most of these are palestinians)
And where would the palestinians get the materials they need for building bomb shelters? And have you any idea how much that would cost?

Just earlier today, Israel bombed another UN school, a place where refugees came under protection of the UN. Israel didn't care, and bombed them. 30-40 ppl died, most of them children.
So don't tell us Israel doesn't bomb civilians, they really don't care who they bomb as long as it kills a palestinian.
Hamas also tries to kill civilians, no doubt. Hamas would kill lots more if they had the weapons to do it. I'm not trying to say Hamas are saints.
But let's face reality, Hamas hasn't killed loads of civilians, Israel has. 800-900 children dead/injured speaks for itself.
How can you support such actions???

USA fights a similar war in Iraq, an enemy who blends in with the civilian population. But they still avoid slaughtering thousands of civilians when they attack the enemy. The majority of the casualties are women and children in Gaza.
How can this be unless Israel tries to kill civilians?

[SnuggleySoft]

America kills/imprisons loads of iraqi innocents... But Iraq didn't bomb our civilians. So its bad imo.

[stoffi]

America kills/imprisons loads of iraqi innocents... But Iraq didn't bomb our civilians. So its bad imo.

Not compared to this.


Latest news is that Israeli Apache helicopters now target ambulances transporting wounded ppl. The islamic red cross reports that it has become difficult to send out ambulances, because they time after time come under heavy fire from IDF as soon as they leave the hospital to collect ppl.

Also, 3 danish, mobile field hospitals were bombed, despite them being marked with a red cross and all the needed symbols.

And 2 UN schools were also bombed, and dozens of children killed, and many more injured.


If Hamas had done this to Israel, it would surely have been called terror and Israel would have called out the world community. This no one can deny.
So how is this not terror?

Israel has always targetted the UN and international help organizations to get them away. During the Lebanon war, UN bases were bombed time after time to get them away, so they could not report what happened. This is a standard tactic from Israel. They don't want ppl to see what they are doing, and that is also why they bombed communication networks and why they have refused to let in journalists to Gaza for many months now, because they knew already then that this war would start, and they started it by bombing Hamas November 4th, forcing Hamas to respond after the cf was over.

All this is not something you can ignore, unless you are utterly blind from fanatical christianity or if you're a "we're chosen by God-jew".

[stoffi]

If Cuba began sending rockets to America, then damn skippy I'd want us to bomb Cuban military sites.

Yes its a tragedy that civilians are dying. But thats just another reason to hate Hamas. Your acting how Hamas wants you too. They put their people in harm's way on purpose partly for PR. They believe the people killed are martyrs, so they don't really care. Its all for the cause. They just want to build outrage. I think Mourhelm has clearly stated why the attacks are a sad, but necessary, action very well.

You said it, USA would bomb their military, not hospitals, schools, market places, universities, ambulances, civilians, etc. There were no Hamas anywhere near these targets.

And give me ONE single proof that Hamas puts civilians in harms way on purpose. It's a myth without proof. No civilian is forced to stay in the city, they don't have any place to run. They are already refugees and their borders are shut.

It's never necessary to kill/injure soon 1000 children. That's terror.