[News] Middle East conflict

[Albion my Albion]

Isn't this exactly what is happening in Gaza now ? Innocent children being bombed to death in the same way the Nazis murdered Jewish children. I don't care how it's done or equally under what banner but murder is murder.

It's awful and cruel but it's not being done in the same way.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

It's awful and cruel but it's not being done in the same way.

But you accept it's still murder of children ?

 

[Albion my Albion]

But you accept it's still murder of children ?

No, no I don't.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

No, no I don't.

Really - you don't see the indiscrimante bombing that is killing HUNDREDS of children as murder ? The UN does.

 

[Albion my Albion]

Really - you don't see the indiscrimante bombing that is killing HUNDREDS of children as murder ? The UN does.

I believe the UN has been wrong a lot.

And it hasn't been totally indiscriminate. They actually killed many Hamas leaders. Hamas didn't kill anybody who was not an innocent civilian.

 

[A1X]

I believe the UN has been wrong a lot.

So how would you define the current indiscriminate murder of civilians by the Israeli Defence Force?

 

[Albion my Albion]

So how would you define the current indiscriminate murder of civilians by the Israeli Defence Force?

It's not!!!!

IDF is killing Hamas leadership that is hiding among Palestinian civilians. That should be on the Hamas leadership.

 

[Zeberdi]

Well yes. Desperate people turn to deaperate means. In this case the people of Gaza turned to Hamas after years of suppression and murder by Israel. I don't condone what Hamas has done but Israel sealed its own fate - it had a chance of peace with the PA and a two state solution. So equally I don't condone the murder of Palesinians by Israel. You were the one that stated there was no provocation - there was and continues to be. All Israel is doing is murdering innocents and in turn creating the next generation of terrorists - they really are that stupid !

This is a rather one sided portrayal of the conflict - perhaps some more background reading for balance?

There has been aggression and murder on both sides for the past 70 plus years - albeit heavily leaning toward Israel as the main antagonist - actually it’s never really gone away since before Israel became an independent state. ‘ The people’ didn’t ‘turn’ to Hamas, Hamas was elected as a political party to represent the people of Palestine as one of two political parties that ruled the OPT from 1994 along with Fatah, the other political party, as an outcome of the Oslo Peace Accords - it was a positive step forward.

In 2005 Hamas solidified control in Gaza without an electoral mandate and by brutal force and have maintained control through torturous means and killing their opponents ever since..

- the attack on Israel wasn’t so much as last straw but a continuation of a conflict that has been going on for decades and which there has been terrorism on both sides.

Israel DID come to a peace deal under the Oslo Accords in 1993 - both the PLO and Israel laid down their arms and agreed to work towards an independent Palestinian State - it was extremists on both sides that were responsible for the resurgence of violence, Hamas with the suicide bombings that undermined Rabin’s Labour Party and the Religious Zionist that assassinated him and made way for Netanyahu’s Lukid Party to come to power.

Its all very well ( and completely) justifiable to condemn the appalling events in Gaza but in doing so, don’t think Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian Territories has been met with a passive resistance for the past 70 years until Hamas asserted itself in the mid 1990s because it wasn’t and don’t assume all the people are an homogenous group who all support Hamas, they don’t.

 

[drew]

Sorry, I can't call that legitimate provocation for what HAMAS and other terrorist groups have done. Probably my background of schooling near Washington University in St Louis, heavily Jewish school, has coloured my thinking but if your people had been almost wiped out by the dictators of the world including some of my kind of people in Germany you would think very differently too. You trust no one else to look out for your people.

And therein lies the problem, each side seeing what they are doing as justified. Problem is that on one side is a terrorist organisation resorting to a diabolical t. errorist attack and, as a terrorist organisation not constrained by international law, and on the other a nation state which is carrying out terrorist acts and breaking the international law.

 

[Albion my Albion]

All Israel is doing is murdering innocents and in turn creating the next generation of terrorists - they really are that stupid !

Why does the next generation of Palestinians, who are mostly Muslim, a peaceful religion, turn to the terrorism that they have over many years?

Should the US turn to terrorism in it's fight with Mexican drug lords?

Was it legit for the IRA to kill Lords and turn to their terrorist activities?

 

[Zeberdi]

And therein lies the problem, each side seeing what they are doing as justified. Problem is that on one side is a terrorist organisation resorting to a diabolical t. errorist attack and, as a terrorist organisation not constrained by international law, and on the other a nation state which is carrying out terrorist acts and breaking the international law.

Exactly and this is not a binary issue either - there are rights and wrongs on both sides and plenty of nuances in between.

As long as the Palestine question is seen as a binary problem with a binary solution, it will remain an intractable problem - you can’t build a peaceful understandings based on a false dichotomies.

And posters on this thread will keep arguing with each other without listening to objective analysis based on facts but rather hyperbolic arguments based on emotion.

Until we accept the complexities and live with the contradictions that both Israel and Palestinians have a history that must be recognised as stemming from different but very valid perspectives then we will never have a truthful debate just a lot of moral certitudes based on half truths, propaganda and the social media thought for the day.

 

[A1X]

It's not!!!!

IDF is killing Hamas leadership that is hiding among Palestinian civilians. That should be on the Hamas leadership.

So how many Hamas leaders were at the Rafah crossing when Israel recently struck that? Or in the refugee convoy heading south as per the IDF’s instructions? Or the recently hit ambulance?

 

[Hugo Rune]

I believe the UN has been wrong a lot.

And it hasn't been totally indiscriminate. They actually killed many Hamas leaders. Hamas didn't kill anybody who was not an innocent civilian.

Again. That’s not true.

“In a single day, more than 1,000 Israeli civilians and more than 350 Israeli soldiers and police were killed in nearby towns.” Wiki

Many of the attacks on 7th October were on military bases.

Please try and check your facts before posting again. It makes for a better debate.

 

[Zeberdi]

Isn't this exactly what is happening in Gaza now ? Innocent children being bombed to death in the same way the Nazis murdered Jewish children. I don't care how it's done or equally under what banner but murder is murder.

Can people please stop drawing comparisons to the Holocaust in this conflict, it’s offensive - @Bozza did ask this a few days ago - perhaps people missed it?

 

[drew]

It's not!!!!

IDF is killing Hamas leadership that is hiding among Palestinian civilians. That should be on the Hamas leadership.

 

[Albion my Albion]

facepalm, so what?

why don't you try some words?

It's easy just to facepalm someone.

 

[drew]

facepalm, so what?

I'm guessing your comment 'so what' also applies to your attitude to innocent Palestinian lives lost to Israeli bombing.

 

[Zeberdi]

Please try and check your facts before posting again. It makes for a better debate.

I am beginning to think that’s too much of a big ask on this thread - a lot of posts just seem to be repeating snippets of poorly understood information and context - perhaps by reading some of the more measured analytical posts on this thread or from MSM - however shallow tropes, moralistic posturing and reductive summaries don’t make for constructive or informative debate imo.

Just to add- I totally understand that this Israel-Hamas war is upsetting for everyone on so many different levels - we wouldn’t be human if it wasn’t- but I can honestly say IMO most people that have posted on this topic seem to appreciate that the only blameless people directly involved in this conflict are the civilians and citizens (who have died at the hands of Hamas paramilitary forces , (especially in the initial incursive attack on Israel) or at hands of the IDF (especially in Gaza but also elsewhere in the OPT ) with over half being women and children. Perhaps we need to refocus on that sometimes because that’s an area all of us can agree on, surely ?

 

[Hugo Rune]

Can people please stop drawing comparisons to the Holocaust in this conflict, it’s offensive - @Bozza did ask this a few days ago - perhaps people missed it?

This.

Added to the offence is the lack of similarities in the comparison. It’s just not a reasonable connection to draw.

A valid comparison during that era would be the indiscriminate killing of 25,000 innocent people through bombing by Britain/USA in WW2:

Bombing of Dresden in World War II - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Albion my Albion]

I'm guessing your comment 'so what' also applies to your attitude to innocent Palestinian lives lost to Israeli bombing.

I truly feel there is no legit cause for the terrorism that Palestinian civilians would, in your view, turn to in the future