Facts get in the way of pro-Hamas propaganda.

Cute.

justify using the might of the American paid for IDF and blow up a house full of children because some clown does this? Really?

Of course not.

Their yearly budget is about $15 billion.

was saying anything like that. Do you?

What is in serious question is whether actions of the Israeli armed forces in dealing with it gain them sufficient direct military benefit to outweigh the risk of harm to non-combatants. That is the test of legality in such actions. It is certain that in some instances Israel has failed that test, and engaged in attacks which can only reasonably be regarded as crimes.

Certainly, Hamas commits crimes of war, both by firing weapons without regard to whether they strike non-combatants or not, and definitely by taking up fighting positions and storing weapons in positions so situated that any attack against them must involve great risk of harm to non-combatants.

But is not possible to maintain that one side violates the rules and the other side adheres to them; that is simply not true.

Because I don't know that there would be universal agreement on that here.

responsible of course) who totally ignore the sins of Hamas and totally concentrate on so-called war crimes committed by Israel. All some of us are acting for is some fairness and balance. You provide it but many other do not.

Last edited Wed Aug 6, 2014, 01:22 PM - Edit history (1)

have been killed compared to approx 67 Israelis.

Where Hamas indiscriminately kills and Israel pin-points their kills.

On edit, I updated the numbers of deaths and removed the words indicating the Israelis "intentially killed children". I don't know their intentions but based my comment that they pin-pointed attack on six schools.

It closes with grotesque exaggeration. If it were the flat intent of Israeli operations to kill children, or for that matter simply to kill non-combatants, there would be a great many more dead. Over the course of the previous four weeks, had it been the intention of the Israeli armed forces simply to kill, casualties in the range of scores, if not hundreds, of thousands could have been inflicted. It is one thing to state that Israel has in a number of instances made attacks which cannot have brought direct military benefit sufficient to outweigh the risk of harm to non-combatants, or even to claim that Israel has in some instances failed to take adequate care to minimize harm to non-combatants, and these are things supporters of Israel need to acknowledge and face up to. But it is quite another to make a hyperbolic claim that 'Israel intentionally kills children', because there is no evidence that is so: there is no evidence that any Israeli military action has had for its object the killing of children deliberately, in full knowledge children were the targets. It is that kind of deliberate exaggeration which makes it hard to press a case that there has been criminal behavior by Israeli forces, because people can point to that kind of nonesense and use its obvious falsity to dismiss the very concept of criticizing the actions of Israeli armed forces.

this sentence is not logical, "If it were the flat intent of Israeli operations to kill children, or for that matter simply to kill non-combatants, there would be a great many more dead. " Neither you nor I know what their "flat intent" is. It appears to me that they are intentionally and indiscriminately killing civilians. I hope you are not arguing that their objective when destroying a school is to destroy missiles or tunnels, and children and civilians that are killed are collateral damage.

The balance that the poster I addressed is alluding to is that there is a balance between the crimes by Hamas and Israel. Look at the death toll and tell me there is a balance.

Or provide a link to that specific information if possible.

I just can't find the exact specifics on which schools were hit and how many casualties there were in each incident (specifically children).

If you have a link to that information, it would be greatly appreciated.

strikes and have taken out six schools. While I don't know how many children were killed in each incident, it appears the current death toll of Palestinians is approx 1,800 of which hundreds are reportedly children. This information is all over the internet.

In approx numbers for every Israeli death, 25 Palestinians have been killed.

Tell me something I don't know.

Doesn't matter how much proof you give...some people will dismiss it because Hamas can never do anything wrong.

Many more dead if they din't care.

Should the cops level the entire neighborhood, and kill my neighbors?

That is the worst ever.

Sorry.

and exist for the purpose of eradicating the liquor store forever?

Shooting from the vicinity of homes isn't nice. Flattening those and other homes one after another with deadly precision and with no regard for who may be inside, that's morally indefensible.

Certainly doing so is also morally indefensible, no?

I do believe that there's a matter of proportionality, of efficacy. There are a lot of dead Palestinians, and this comes as a surprise to no one. It is morally indefensible for Hamas to fire rockets into Israel, but it's just as morally indefensible for the IDF to indiscriminately kill innocents in sizable numbers.

They could launch from the settlements Israel has vacated, they are empty, of course then they would have to actually fight the Israeli army not to mention they might catch the Jew from being there.

They only exist as a negative force. Period.

1.8 million people squeezed into an area roughly twice the size of DC (139 sq miles). If it was evenly dispersed that is ~13,000 people per sq mile but it is not. This entire "human shields" angle is a farce. It is not like the population in Gaza can cross any of the three land borders and they can't swim out to sea so where should they go?

to vote against assholes who bank on the population density to shoot rockets.

While being shelled...

...of the Israeli policy of taking Palestinian land for settlements deemed illegal by the UN/ICJ that would cause a people to feel the need to vote into power such a radical organization for their very survival.

...I'll let you finish that thought.

...and then ask yourself what would you do?

I'd stop denying theirs, for openers.

But I'm a reasonable person, whereas Hamas lists as a PRINCIPLE that it wants all Jews dead.

Give me a fucking break.

If you're going to sympathize with Hamas, then you will need to deal with the fact that you
sympathize with Jew-haters. Period. Paragraph.

said anything like that? You know, like the hamas charter does for everyone to see (and for DU to ignore). Do you doubt that if Israel actually wanted to raze the Gazans that they don't have the weaponry to do that quite effectively?

They could raze Gaza multiple times over in an instant if they wanted but the long term strategic loss would far outweigh the short term tactical victory of such a move.

As for you question.

Moshe Feiglin (b. Haifa ’62) is an Israeli politician on the rise. Elected as a member of the Knesset only in January 2013, today he already serves as deputy speaker of the Knesset. In May, a poll listed him has the fourth most popular member of Likud.

about parliamentary systems of government - I'm not being snide - many Americans have no concept of countries with dozens of parties to choose from (since we only have 2). Being the 4th most popular member of Likud is the same as calling Michelle Bachman a leader among republicans.

You understate the importance of this person given Likud currently holds the most seats in the Knesset.

Michelle Bachman was for a time a "leader" in the republican party.

She's never had any power other than her big mouth. Same with this guy. And Michelle is in the majority party in a house with only 2 parties.

Away from fucking where they're launching the rockets.

Gaza City is the most densely populated part of Gaza and its still half as densely populated as Manhattan.

For the moment, I'll focus on one particular, insistent meme, constantly being promoted by Israel and its apologists, namely that Hamas is using civilians as "human shields." The idea is that for Hamas to place any kind of military personnel anywhere in or near a civilian neighborhood constitutes using all the civilians in that neighborhood as "human shields." Furthermore, it makes of that neighborhood a legitimate "military" target for devastating Israeli attack, absolves Israel from any culpability for the scores of resulting dead, blown-apart civilians including children, and places all moral and legal responsibility for those victims on the Palestinian resistance fighters who dared appear anywhere near civilians.

So, for example, the personal homes of Palestinian political and military leaders, construed as "command and control centers," are legitimate military targets. If a Hamas functionary lives with his family of five children in an apartment building of 8 stories with 4 apartments per floor, it is perfectly legitimate to bomb that building and kill all 32 families--"human shields," after all--in order to destroy that "command and control center."

This "human shields" argument is what allows Israeli officials, as Noura Erakat points out, to "openly admit that they are deliberately and systematically bombing the family homes of suspected militants," killing whole families. It suggests an ethic that supposedly justifies an Israeli offensive which produces 75-80% civilian causalities , 33% of which are children, among the Palestinian population (and somehow renders insignificant the contrasting fact that almost 100% of Israeli casualties from Palestinian resistance operations are military). To hear it in the American media, poor, anguished Israel actually becomes the victim of all these "telegenically dead," deliberately sacrificed, Palestinian "human shields."

Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025336909

Like that guy on the motorcycle they meant to hit while blowing up a UN shelter. Better safe and not sorry!

If it would have worked and journalists and the UN building would have been hit, can you imagine the headlines? The dupes and shills in the media that gobble up Hamas PR would be all over it with headlines like "Israeli misssles target another UN facility" or "Israel targeting journalists in Gaza".

The fact that Hamas was using them as human Shields, just like they do schools and hospitals, would have been glossed over.

Getting civilians killed is a no lose scenario for Hamas.

Eom

Of course this does not excuse Hamas from placing those weapons so close to homes and hospitals. A launching pad near homes does to equate to using human shields. The most crowded place in the ME makes it almost impossible to fight from anywhere except near homes and the rubble of homes. there was a lot in the video that left a lot of questions...really needs to be examined closely. Empty and abandoned homes are all over Gaza and the rubble of homes is everywhere.

How about between Gaza City and Nuseirat? Pretty empty, isn't it?

Or maybe don't launch rockets in the first place?

It is strategy, they need casualty numbers to show the world to try and get sympathy, in other words Hamas wants civilians killed to further their cause.

problem solved

And the building with the UN flag next door.

Without judging right and wrong, these are going to be the casualties in any subsequent fighting.

So, I don't.

It is the logic of My Lai or Sand Creek.

Considering we are talking about a densely populated area with a population of around 2 million people being attacked by a country with advanced US-provided weaponry - and a desire to inflict severe damage. That any innocent people were killed is absolutely tragic (and that so many children were killed is horrific) but it must be surprising that the total isn't higher under the circumstances described.

You might be interested in this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025344929

The reason that more Gazans weren't killed or injured is that, notwithstanding what some DUers apparently believe, Israel was not trying to kill civilians or even being indiscriminate about where they targeted their missiles. If either of those things were true, a couple of things would be different: first, the number of reported casualties would be even higher; second, given that those under 15 years of age make up 30 to 40 percent of the Gazan population, the percentage of those killed who were children (if they were being specifically targeted or even the victims of random attacks) would be at least 30 to 40 percent, not less than half that.

In pointing this out, I am not attempting to minimize the deaths of civilians that have occurred in this conflict. They are, in any number, tragic. And they reflect the fact that the Israeli's efforts to avoid or minimize civilian casualties were obviously insufficient. But the argument that the Israelis have been specifically trying to kill as many civilians as they can and, in particular, as many children, is simply false.

It is one large "densely populated civilian era" for pete's sake.

With its population at approximately 1.82 million people, Gaza has a population density of 13,064 people per SQUARE mile. That is about half the density of New York City (27,778 people per square mile) and about equal with Boston (13,321 people per square mile).

READ more: http://www.businessinsider.com/these-maps-show-what-the-gaza-invasion-would-look-like-in-major-us-cities-2014-7#ixzz39ScR5Glt

The city's population has continued to increase since that time to 515,556 in 2012, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories. Gaza has one of the highest overall growth rates and population densities IN THE WORLD: 9,982.69/km² (26,424.76/mi²).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_City#Population

You can't swing a dead cat in most of Gaza without hitting civilians.

Look at, for example, the area between Gaza City and Nuseirat.

Or that they use civilians as shields. Even their most ardent supporters know they are as sick as they come.