• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

14 Nov 12: Israel Launches Operations in Gaza

Journeyman said:
Sorry Hamas apologists, but I think you're wrong on this one.

It is, of course, possible to be sympathetic to the plight of the majority of the Palestinian population without being a Hamas apologist. And I'm as firm in my condemnation of Hamas tactics as I have been skeptical of Israeli ones when they appeared in past instances to be crossing lines.

That's part of the problem with the discoure on this... Very quickly if one takes any position that is at all moderated and not firmly and unflinchingly on one side or another, you very quickly get both sides calling you an apologist / hack / propagandist for the other... Sometimes both sides in the same conversation (I'm not referring to here of course- this site has rather high standards for discussion and low tolerance for BS). As amusing as it sometimes, it's problematic.
 
I was referring primarily to the university protesters.


....but I can understand your sensitivity.  ;)
 
Journeyman said:
I was referring primarily to the university protesters.


....but I can understand your sensitivity.  ;)

Oh, I'm right with you on that- I saw enough of that nonsense at Carleton; the unthinking partisanship from both sides, the utter blocking out of the other side's point of view and grievances. It's nonsense and perpetuates the problem.
 
Nemo888 said:
But Israel put them in the internment camp that makes them radical in the first place. The Jewish state of Israel was wiped out in AD 70. Coming back 1878 years later and kicking out the current residents may fulfill their religious prophecy, but it is still wrong. Palestinians deserve a country and to be citizens. Wouldn't this make anyone want to resist? To call that terrorism is a bit sick.

Have you just done a little bit of "Revisionism" here?  Rewriting history to match your views?
 
Nemo888 said:
But Israel put them in the internment camp that makes them radical in the first place. The Jewish state of Israel was wiped out in AD 70. Coming back 1878 years later and kicking out the current residents may fulfill their religious prophecy, but it is still wrong. Palestinians deserve a country and to be citizens. Wouldn't this make anyone want to resist? To call that terrorism is a bit sick.

A grievance may be legitimate- and there are many of those in Israel/Palestine on both sides. But when you take your acting on an unresolved grievance to the point of deliberately trying to kill civilians to make a point, yeah, I'll comfortably call that terrorism.
 
Mods: this thread is going the way of all Israel vs Anyone threads. We will, almost certainly, have need of a fresh, new "Mid-East Crisis!" thread within a few weeks.

Maybe we should close this and await "events, dear boy, events."
 
Brihard said:
Hamas received 440,000 votes, or about 44% of eligible voters. Not even a majority of the popular vote. That doesn't seem like a particularly strong argument, given a total population of about 1.7 million. There are many, many innocent people who did not vote for Hamas, and many who were not able to vote at all. Are they too reaping what they've somehow sown?

I'm with Nemo in terms of it being a matter of good conscience for a major world power to try to leverage for a ceasefire in this conflict. It's exceptionally rare, in my opinion, for the presence of killing to be more desirable than the lack thereof.

Then let the other 56% rise up and kick Hamas out.

Just a general observation on the discussion also. Why is it people always talk about the innocents and the rights of the Palestinians but somehow conveniently forget about the loss of life and devastation that the Arab world has poured down on Israel. The losses may not be as great, but that's simply because Israel is better prepared, trained and has a higher regard for protecting their people than Arab terrorists do theirs.
 
recceguy said:
Then let the other 56% rise up and kick Hamas out.

Just a general observation on the discussion also. Why is it people always talk about the innocents and the rights of the Palestinians but somehow conveniently forget about the loss of life and devastation that the Arab world has poured down on Israel. The losses may not be as great, but that's simply because Israel is better prepared, trained and has a higher regard for protecting their people than Arab terrorists do theirs.

I do not forget or ignore those things- when I have conversations with other friends of mine and the issues of the West Bank come up, I point out that it, the Golan, and the Sinai were taken in a defensive war against literally all of Israel's neighbours, and most of *their* neighbours- and that the Sinai was given back. I always firmly support Israel's military decision in those instances, although I distinguish the need for military depth in the West Bank from the annexation/settler issue. I equally quickly smack down those who try to present 1973 as Israeli aggression. And of course you have plainly see in above posts that I have openly agreed with the accurate appelation of certain Hamas tactics as 'terrorism', and the differences in word use to describe deliberate Hamas attacks on civilians versus Israeli attacks that cause civilian casualties usually as an unavoidable reality of conflict, and occasionally as a result of error or neglect. So please don't sit there pretending that everyone must have only a one sided view on the conflict, because that is false.
 
So, in the news today- Israel has doubled the nautical fishing limit, and is expanding the arable land to which Gazan farmers have access. Exactly the sort of common sense concessions that should have been made a considerable time ago, that has minimal real impact on Israel's security, and which will have a concrete positive impact on the Gaza economy and the lives of some residents.

It's nice to see good sense and humanity starting to break through the bilateral belligerence in the wake of the latest flare up. It also allows ISrael to say "Look, we have done something concrete and good." That is very much in their interest diplomatically.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/11/20121124151832736999.html
 
Brihard said:
I do not forget or ignore those things- when I have conversations with other friends of mine and the issues of the West Bank come up, I point out that it, the Golan, and the Sinai were taken in a defensive war against literally all of Israel's neighbours, and most of *their* neighbours- and that the Sinai was given back. I always firmly support Israel's military decision in those instances, although I distinguish the need for military depth in the West Bank from the annexation/settler issue. I equally quickly smack down those who try to present 1973 as Israeli aggression. And of course you have plainly see in above posts that I have openly agreed with the accurate appelation of certain Hamas tactics as 'terrorism', and the differences in word use to describe deliberate Hamas attacks on civilians versus Israeli attacks that cause civilian casualties usually as an unavoidable reality of conflict, and occasionally as a result of error or neglect. So please don't sit there pretending that everyone must have only a one sided view on the conflict, because that is false.

Please re-read what I posted. I said it was a general observation of the thread.

Nothing was pointed at you.

So please stop pretending I'm attacking you.
 
recceguy said:
Please re-read what I posted. I said it was a general observation of the thread.

Nothing was pointed at you.

So please stop pretending I'm attacking you.

I misinterpreted what you said. I'm used to taking exactly that kind of flak in several other places, so sometimes it gets hard to differentiate the 'general' from the 'specific'. I apologize.
 
Brihard said:
I misinterpreted what you said. I'm used to taking exactly that kind of flak in several other places, so sometimes it gets hard to differentiate the 'general' from the 'specific'. I apologize.
no harm, no foul  :salute:
 
Larry Strong said:
"The Jews tried - twice - to rebel against Roman rule. The first Jewish rebellion, in AD 66-70, ended in massacre, the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, and the mass suicide of the defenders of the Masada.

The second rebellion, in AD 132 (or 135? can't remember), was the last straw for the Roman authorities, who permanently exiled the Jews from their homeland. They were forced to scatter - the English translation of the Greek word Diaspora, which was used to describe the scattered state of the Jews from this point forward - throughout the ancient world and make their lives as a permanent minority in unfamiliar places.

After that, the land of Israel was controlled by the Canaanites, the Assyrians (northern part), the Egyptians, the Babylonians / Chaldean, the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Christians (parts of it), the Ottoman Turks, and the British."

Ahad Ha'am believed that, "the Moslems [of Palestine] are the ancient residents of the land ... who became Christians on the rise of Christianity and became Moslems on the arrival of Islam**." Israel Belkind, the founder of the Bilu movement also asserted that the Palestinian Arabs were the blood brothers of the Jews*. In his book on the Palestinians, "The Arabs in Eretz-Israel", Belkind advanced the idea that the complete dispersion of Jews out of the Land of Israel after the destruction of the Second Temple by the Roman emperor Titus is a "historic error" that must be corrected. While it dispersed much of the land's Jewish community around the world, those "workers of the land that remained attached to their land," i.e the Jews, stayed behind and were eventually converted to Christianity and then Islam.


*  Israel Belkind, "Arabs in Eretz Israel", Hermon Publishers, Tel Aviv, 1969, p.8
** Salim Tamari (Winter 2004). Lepers, Lunatics and Saints: The Nativist Ethnography of Tawfiq Canaan and his Jerusalem Circle

So why are the Jew's not allowed to return to their ansestral homelands??

Because after 1800 years you can't go, "Hey buddy, that's my seat." They can return, but kicking out the people living there for centuries or longer and taking their stuff is wrong. That would be like the American Indians coming back in the year 3550 and kicking us out of our homes and businesses and making us live in a walled interment camp around Hudson Bay. The main argument here that having the military force to do so makes it acceptable is not valid. When you start by doing something immoral and then compound it with violence the monsters you create are your responsibility. When I was a boy Palestinian boys threw rocks at the IDF. That was the only terrorism going on. The IDF got into the habit of shooting them. 30 years later those boys who survived build rockets. After fifty years in an interment camp after being thrown out of your home and having your lands confiscated who wouldn't be angry and want to resist.

There are only a few ways this can end. Israel can kill them all, make them citizens or give them a state of their own. Keeping them interned in a defacto prison camp for generations makes no sense unless you need slave labour.
 
ObedientiaZelum said:
What's stopping Israel from making them citizens or giving them the land?

Political will. I don't believe that any coalition with this as a platform would be able to win the Knesset.
 
I'm asking out of pure ignorance, I don't know the first thing about that conflict  (save what I read on this forum).

Just feels like it might be easier to say fuck here you go this part is yours this part is ours. If you keep dropping rockets on us we'll flatten your stuff and make it ours.

Because after 1800 years you can't go, "Hey buddy, that's my seat." They can return, but kicking out the people living there for centuries or longer and taking their stuff is wrong.
Good point
 
ObedientiaZelum said:
Just feels like it might be easier to say fuck here you go this part is yours this part is ours.
Except for the stated policy of several jihadist groups to destroy Israel, killing the Jews. No concession will be enough.
 
Nemo888 said:
When I was a boy Palestinian boys threw rocks at the IDF. That was the only terrorism going on. The IDF got into the habit of shooting them. 30 years later those boys who survived build rockets. After fifty years in an interment camp after being thrown out of your home and having your lands confiscated who wouldn't be angry and want to resist.

Well now you've just shown everyone you've got an axe to grind against Israel.

Oh, and the only terrorism going on? Here's a little snippet from that time period: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/israel-terror.htm
 
Nemo888 said:
Wouldn't this make anyone want to resist? To call that terrorism is a bit sick.

Let's not confuse two different issues here. You can resist without resorting to acts or terror.

Do the Palestinians have a right to carry out acts of civil disobedience and other acts of resistance? Perhaps.

Do factions within the Palestinian community have the right to carry out acts of terrorism to further their cause to achieve an independent homeland? No.

 
Stratfor lays out how IRON DOME works in conjunction with other systems and also how Hamas conducted the rocket war:

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htada/articles/20121120.aspx

Iron Dome Spoils The Hamas Surprise Attack
 
November 20, 2012: Israel has bought seven batteries of Iron Dome anti-rocket missiles. Four are in action and a fifth one entered service several weeks early (on November 17) because of the major rocket assault Hamas and other Islamic terror groups in Gaza launched on November 14th. Over 500 rockets were launched during the first two days, but then the number began to decline. On Saturday (the 17th) 230 rockets were fired, with only 156 on Sunday, and 121 on Monday. While the Palestinians have fired over a thousand rockets into Israel so far, and killed three Israelis, their effort is faltering and the Israeli response is not. Few of the rockets landed in occupied areas. That’s because Iron Dome has been able to detect and destroy 90 percent of the rockets that were going to land in an area containing people. The Israeli military says they have shot down over 300 rockets so far.

Iron Dome uses two radars to quickly calculate the trajectory of the incoming rocket and do nothing if the rocket trajectory indicates it is going to land in an uninhabited area. But if the computers predict a rocket coming down in an inhabited area, guided missiles are fired to intercept the rocket. This makes the system cost-effective. That's because Hezbollah fired 4,000 rockets in 2006, and Palestinian terrorists in Gaza have fired over six thousand rockets in the past eight years and the Israelis know where each of them landed. Over 90 percent of these rockets landed in uninhabited areas, and few of those that did hit inhabited areas caused casualties. Israel already has a radar system in place that gives some warning of approaching rockets. Iron Dome uses that system, in addition to another, more specialized, radar in southern Israel.

The Palestinians had been making and breaking ceasefire deals for years but threw away all pretense of making peace after one of the Israeli retaliatory air strikes killed the head of Hamas military operations. Israel had threatened to resume its missile attacks against Hamas leaders if the rocket and mortar attacks on southern Israel did not stop. So on the 14th Israel began shooting at Hamas leaders again and Hamas decided it was time for a major attack against Israel, if only to protect the terrorist group leadership.

Five years ago an Israeli campaign against key terrorist personnel severely restricted the movements of Hamas leaders and forced the terrorist group to agree to a ceasefire. But that deal has fallen apart now because Hamas would not control the smaller Islamic terror groups who continued to attack Israel. Now that Israel has resumed its attacks on all terrorist leaders in Gaza, Hamas is screaming “war crimes” (and getting some support in the West), but the resumption of these attacks appears to be the only thing that can get the Hamas leadership to keep their word. On the down side, the smaller Islamic terror groups in Gaza have become larger and now threaten civil war and the possibility of Hamas rule ending (to be replaced by an even worse crew of Islamic radicals). The only other Israeli option is a ground campaign, like the one in 2009. But that risks more Israeli casualties. Israel does not want to send in ground troops, as this will lead to more Israeli deaths. But the ground operation is obviously an option given the large force of Israeli troops and armored vehicles now gathered at the Gaza border.

Since Hamas is a big believer in using civilians as human shields (often against their will), a ground campaign would get a lot more Palestinians killed. So the attacks against specific terrorist leaders are seen as the better option. Even this risks civilian casualties because Hamas puts its government and military facilities in residential neighborhoods. It has also, on the advice of its Hezbollah advisors, built rocket launchers near mosques, schools, hospitals, and residences. The Israelis have distributed lots of videos of Palestinian rockets being fired in this way. Still, most Arab and some Western media keep maintaining that Israel is at fault for defending itself or simply existing.

This latest war with the Palestinians has been a major test for the Iron Dome system. Each battery has radar and control equipment and four missile launchers. Each battery costs about $37 million, which includes over fifty Tamir missiles (costing $40,000 each). In the two years before this month Iron Dome had intercepted over 100 rockets headed for populated areas. In the last week Iron Dome has intercepted at least another 300 rockets.

The Palestinians are believed to have tried to defeat Iron Dome by firing a lot of long range missiles simultaneously at a few cities. In theory this could overwhelm one or two Iron Dome batteries. But Israel is keeping 24/7 UAV watch on Gaza and have so far spotted attempts at large scale simultaneous launchers and bombed many of the launch sites. This has resulted in many rockets destroyed on the ground or launching erratically and landing within Gaza or nowhere near where they were aimed. Because Iron Dome can track hundreds of incoming missiles, quickly plot their trajectory and likely landing spot, and ignore the majority that will not land near people, the Palestinians have to put hundreds of larger (long range) missiles into the air at the same time to be sure of causing lots of Israeli casualties. So far the Palestinians have been unable to get enough rockets into the air at the same time and at the rate Israeli aircraft are bombing Hamas rocket storage sites (and setting off secondary explosions of the rockets to confirm the hit), the Palestinians will be out of rockets in another week or so. 

Earlier this month Israel successfully completed tests of new software for its Iron Dome anti-rocket system. The improvements enable the Iron Dome missiles to intercept incoming rockets farther away. The 90 kg (200 pound) three meter (9.8 foot) long Tamir missiles use a proximity fuze to detonate near the incoming rocket.

The Palestinian rocket attacks have been around since 2001, but got much worse once Israel pulled out of Gaza in August of 2005. This was a peace gesture that backfired. From 2001 to 2005, about 700 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. Since the 2005 withdrawal, over 5,000 more rockets were fired into Israel. The rate of firings increased after Hamas took control of Gaza in June, 2007.

Hamas has been bringing in more factory made Iranian and Chinese made BM-21 and BM-12 rockets. Israel believes Hamas currently has, in Gaza, factory-made BM-21 rockets, each with a range of 20-40 kilometers. They also have some shorter range (six kilometers) Russian designed B-12 rockets. The 122mm BM-21s weigh 68.2 kg (150 pounds) and are 2.9 meters (nine feet) long. These have 20.5 kg (45 pound) warheads but not much better accuracy than the 107mm model. However, these larger rockets have a maximum range of 20 kilometers. Again, because they are unguided, they are only effective if fired in salvos or at large targets (like cities, large military bases, or industrial complexes). There are Egyptian and Chinese variants that have smaller warheads and larger rocket motors, giving them a range of about 40 kilometers. Israel believes there are dozens of Iranian Fajr rockets, with a range of 70 kilometers, plus several hundred extended-range (40 kilometers) 122mm rockets, and even more standard range (20 kilometers) 122mm rockets in Gaza. There are believed to be over 10,000 rockets stored in Gaza. Iron Dome was designed to detect and hit those with a range of 10 kilometers or more, as these could reach more heavily populated areas of Israel. While Hamas always hinted at negotiating an extended ceasefire with Israel, it still maintained that the ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel.
 
Back
Top