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At least 172 Palestinians killed, 1,280 injured, UN says 77% are civilians

RJKarl said:
Do you dispute that Israel has the right to defend itself?
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Israel has the right to defend itself. It did in the 6 Day War and intermittently throughout the past 70 years. What Israel is doing right now is not defending itself. It is strategically targeting members of Hamas in dense urban centers at the expense of thousands of innocent people.
 
RJKarl said:
So why can't Israel hit back at Hamas?

There would be no strikes going on if not for Hamas. You can't deny this.
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If the Tea Party kidnapped three Canadian children and the Canadian government retaliated by launching missiles into Los Angeles (or, hell, Winston-Salem), "strategically" aimed at locations in which alleged members of the Republican party are rumored to be, would that be justified?

And I don't think the latter sentence is right. Israeli kids taking selfies and posting hate speech on Facebook and Twitter don't care whether Palestinians (or Arabs for that matter) are affiliated with Hamas. It's racist bloodlust. Whether you want to blame that on the Israeli far right or not is up to you, but to suggest that all of the violence over the past 20 years is strategically aimed and focused at Hamas is kind of ridiculous.
 
ONW said:
No one started it, and everybody started it. Who gives a fuck at this point? Start fixing the damn issues and quit trying to backtrack to who did what to whom first in whatever year BC to justify what's going on now, which is killing civilians and occasionally someone bad. You're both wrong. I don't care who cast the first stone in the time of Ezekiel, and if the US didn't give a shit for whatever reason, no one else would either.
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This.

I mean, this is what really horrifies me. Innocent people are dying and we're talking about whether a state is justified to continue killing them. How efficient have these attacks been at neutralizing the threat, RJ et al.? Seriously, of all of the extreme violence perpetrated by members of both sides, what has come of it?

I like to believe that a majority on both sides are good people who are equally horrified with what's going on. I've tried to keep my mouth shut on this issue because I have so many friends and family members (both Israeli/Jewish and Palestinian among the former and only Israeli/Jewish among the latter) on both sides of the ideological divide, but as the bodies continue to mount, racism and callous hatred are spewed in the name of some contrived ethnonationalist ideology (seriously, google Zionism), and Gaza is literally pounded into submission, I just can't...
 
Israel's slow descent into a vicious right wing near theocracy is the saddest part of our foreign policy failures of the past 25 years. There is no defense for a civilized military power to be acting the way they are currently.

The generally accepted civilian casualty figures since 1987 in Palestine are 7978 dead Palestinians and 1503 dead Israelis. It's even more dramatically skewed in recent years. Israel has fenced and penned in the Palestinians, treats them like sub-humans without rights and has killed a dramatic number of civilians. There's blood on both sides, but there's a damn lot more blood on Israeli hands and they show absolutely no desire for it to end.

I fully and completely support the existence of Israel as a state. I absolutely do not support the vicious, racist, right wing pit of vipers that it is in it's current form. If it takes the slow backing off of US support and finances for that to change, I support that. Israel is not a nice place right now, and their behavior is completely unacceptable.
 
vadimivich said:
Israel's slow descent into a vicious right wing near theocracy is the saddest part of our foreign policy failures of the past 25 years. There is no defense for a civilized military power to be acting the way they are currently.

The generally accepted civilian casualty figures since 1987 in Palestine are 7978 dead Palestinians and 1503 dead Israelis. It's even more dramatically skewed in recent years. Israel has fenced and penned in the Palestinians, treats them like sub-humans without rights and has killed a dramatic number of civilians. There's blood on both sides, but there's a damn lot more blood on Israeli hands and they show absolutely no desire for it to end.

I fully and completely support the existence of Israel as a state. I absolutely do not support the vicious, racist, right wing pit of vipers that it is in it's current form. If it takes the slow backing off of US support and finances for that to change, I support that. Israel is not a nice place right now, and their behavior is completely unacceptable.
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Well said and I agree with the bold completely.
 
RJ is just blind because it is Israel. A comparison for RJ would be what do you do when terrorists launch an attack that kills 3,000 American civilians? Oh your answer is not invade and level two middle eastern countries resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians since that's what Israel is doing on a much smaller scale and is something he has ranted against and condemned from the beginning.
 
They are both two dogs who wouldn't know what to do if they actually caught the car. It's what keeps them in power, makes them money, and gives them a reason to exist by blaming the other "team" for all their issues.
 
rj cracks me up. just because numbers disagrees rj asks why he hates israel.

is a persecution complex standard for jews or is it just an rj thing? not trolling, asking.
 
Martin Indyk, former envoy to the ME under Obama, was pretty good on Meet the Press yesterday...

http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-transcript-july-13-2014-n154716

"I think Prime Minister Netanyahu is extremely reluctant to go in on the ground. Doesn’t see how that can really serve Israel's purposes. What he wants is an end to the rocket fire and he's looking for ways to pressure Hamas to do that. Pushing now civilians outside, out of the northern parts of Gaza so as to try to put pressure on Hamas from the civilian population and give him room to try to clean up the rocket fire and launches. But he's a very cautious man when it comes to using force and I think he's very reluctant to go in. And in a sense Hamas knows that. And so the bluff of mobilizing all of these tanks is not working in terms of getting Hamas to stop the firing."


"Yes, it's to press for a ceasefire. And I don't think there's a problem on the Israeli side. They will agree to a ceasefire. The problem is how do you get Hamas to agree to a ceasefire. They're looking for something that they can claim as a victory and they're looking for somebody to pay for the salaries of Hamas people in Gaza because they've been cut off from their natural sources of revenues by the Egyptians.

So the whole question is how you leverage Hamas. I think President Obama and Secretary Kerry want very much a cease fire and are willing to do what they can to achieve that, but until Hamas decides that it's going to call of the rocket fire, it's hard to see how this comes to an end."


Im a little surprised at the condemnation of Israel. While I certainly question some of Israel's actions, I think history shows they are the more rationale actor here.

That being said, the ME is just 'effed up and I just see no reasonable way to peace and stability.
 
There isn't a rational actor here.
 
Strickland33 said:
If the Tea Party kidnapped three Canadian children and the Canadian government retaliated by launching missiles into Los Angeles (or, hell, Winston-Salem), "strategically" aimed at locations in which alleged members of the Republican party are rumored to be, would that be justified?

And I don't think the latter sentence is right. Israeli kids taking selfies and posting hate speech on Facebook and Twitter don't care whether Palestinians (or Arabs for that matter) are affiliated with Hamas. It's racist bloodlust. Whether you want to blame that on the Israeli far right or not is up to you, but to suggest that all of the violence over the past 20 years is strategically aimed and focused at Hamas is kind of ridiculous.
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are we targeting the Tea Party or just the GOP? b/c if it's just the Tea Party.....
 
Strickland33 said:
If the Tea Party kidnapped three Canadian children and the Canadian government retaliated by launching missiles into Los Angeles (or, hell, Winston-Salem), "strategically" aimed at locations in which alleged members of the Republican party are rumored to be, would that be justified?

And I don't think the latter sentence is right. Israeli kids taking selfies and posting hate speech on Facebook and Twitter don't care whether Palestinians (or Arabs for that matter) are affiliated with Hamas. It's racist bloodlust. Whether you want to blame that on the Israeli far right or not is up to you, but to suggest that all of the violence over the past 20 years is strategically aimed and focused at Hamas is kind of ridiculous.
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Definitely one of the ridiculous posts of all time. Maybe if the TP had launched thousands upon thousands of missiles into Canada, sanctioned numerous bombings of US pizzarias, schools and bus stops, kidnapped other Canadians, vows to kill every American and denies the America has the right to exist, you might 10% of the way to having an accurate analogy.

I have blamed the Israeli far right for some things, but it has nothing to do the retaliation for missile launches.
 
How did Canada morph into Hamas? I like Toronto.
 
While we're "characterizing" people, I would garner that most people who are sympathizing solely with Israel are either Jewish, somewhat hardline conservatives, or over the age of 45. Hell some may be all three.

Getting away from that red herring which could easily draw away from the actual discussion: I do not for one second believe that Israel is an objectively rational actor, but I suppose as far as being the sharpest broken pencil they are somewhat "rational." So, compared to Hamas - a terrorist organization, I would say that Israel is probably somewhat more likely to act in a rational manner.

Anyone who can't see that both sides are entirely at fault (I would call them jointly and severally liable) I question their motives and/or background.
 
RJKarl said:
Definitely one of the ridiculous posts of all time. Maybe if the TP had launched thousands upon thousands of missiles into Canada, sanctioned numerous bombings of US pizzarias, schools and bus stops, kidnapped other Canadians, vows to kill every American and denies the America has the right to exist, you might 10% of the way to having an accurate analogy.

I have blamed the Israeli far right for some things, but it has nothing to do the retaliation for missile launches.
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And if America had taken 75% of Canada via force and another 5-10% via unilateral annexation while simultaneously asking Canada what the big deal was (and also questioning Canada's right to exist) after the two groups of people had lived in relative conflict for the past 2000+ years debating/rehashing who has a proper religious claim to a historical site who allegedly blessed their own religion then MAYBE we could start comparing this original asinine hypothetical to the current one!
 
Strickland33 said:
This.

I mean, this is what really horrifies me. Innocent people are dying and we're talking about whether a state is justified to continue killing them. How efficient have these attacks been at neutralizing the threat, RJ et al.? Seriously, of all of the extreme violence perpetrated by members of both sides, what has come of it?

I like to believe that a majority on both sides are good people who are equally horrified with what's going on. I've tried to keep my mouth shut on this issue because I have so many friends and family members (both Israeli/Jewish and Palestinian among the former and only Israeli/Jewish among the latter) on both sides of the ideological divide, but as the bodies continue to mount, racism and callous hatred are spewed in the name of some contrived ethnonationalist ideology (seriously, google Zionism), and Gaza is literally pounded into submission, I just can't...
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I think we could probably stop here.

But Vad's post is very good as well. Israel is a borderline theocracy and has gone way, way right over the past couple of decades.

The current brand of Zionism is a pretty disgusting manifestation.
 
Strickland33 said:
If the Tea Party kidnapped three Canadian children and the Canadian government retaliated by launching missiles into Los Angeles (or, hell, Winston-Salem), "strategically" aimed at locations in which alleged members of the Republican party are rumored to be, would that be justified?

And I don't think the latter sentence is right. Israeli kids taking selfies and posting hate speech on Facebook and Twitter don't care whether Palestinians (or Arabs for that matter) are affiliated with Hamas. It's racist bloodlust. Whether you want to blame that on the Israeli far right or not is up to you, but to suggest that all of the violence over the past 20 years is strategically aimed and focused at Hamas is kind of ridiculous.
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I think your analogy here should be the TP kidnapping three Canadians and then shooting rockets at Canada. If that were to happen I have full confidence that the US government should and would take it upon itself to take out the Tea Party members.
 
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