[Mika]

I guess I have to answer now cause I cannot be bothered on May Day due to the probable resulting hangover...

Take a good long look at the figures for 2004 compared to the years afterwards. Notice how 2005 was much lower. Do you really believe that it's a coincidence that this coincides with peace talks between the two sides and Abbas having his police try to prevent rocket attacks?

You think it's a coincidence that the number spiked upwards in 2006 after the War with Lebanon started?

Well, I actually don't believe in the implied causation. Maybe if you could explain it a little bit better I might notice it.

The only thing I can see from the graph is that the number of long range military grade attacks has increased since the pullover. Also seen is that since Hamas has came to power, the number of those kind of attacks have increased. Also seen is that averagely 8.5 rockets/mortar shells landed in Israel each day for every day of the year. Yet this is not the whole picture, more can be found at:

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+before+2000/Fatal+Terrorist+Attacks+in+Israel+Since+the+DOP+-S.htm
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian+terror+since+2000/Victims+of+Palestinian+Violence+and+Terrorism+sinc.htm

What does war with Lebanon have to do with Gaza? Or maybe more to the point, what should the war with Lebanon have to do with Gaza?

Israel should have spent their time and effort supporting Abbas' attempts for peace. Instead they ignored and sidelined him hoping someone better would come along.

OK, this is the second time you brought this one up. Since this is a national level strategy, I would expect that it is public information in Israel and thus it should be mentioned in the news also. Can you find me a link for it? I also expect to see the reason what benefits are there for choosing somebody else than Abbas.

By that logic the war in Iraq never happened either.

If considered by mathematical logic only, answer would probably be yes, but real life differs considerably from such simplifications. As I said before, different theaters have to be considered separately.

And the fact that it would be the end of American support for Israel. Cause even America couldn't turn a blind eye to that.

I have many times wondered how big influence does USA have in this region by having Israel as an ally. But I'm not sure if that would be the end, US people like Nuclear here could probably answer this question better. Obama could cause differences here, though.

But one thing you have to remember is that on one side you have an elected government that is responsible for their military while on the other you have at best a loose affiliation of terrorist groups who for the most part hate each other but are linked by a common hatred of Israel. Expecting a truce with any particular group to be binding on the others is pretty silly.

It all comes back to question do you think that Palestinians have a functional government? I see Israel tried to give space for the Palestinian authority to deal with the problems (which is what the UN has requested).

Collective guilt is the Israeli view (which I've seen parroted on this thread several times) that the Palestinians started it so any accidental deaths of civilians will help them realise that they shouldn't start it again.

That is of course nonsense as the extremists who commit the violence care very little for civilian deaths beyond their ability to use them as PR for why the fight must continue.

Israel need to realise that every dead civilian makes peace less likely, not more.

Were the people saying it Israeli? Splinter has already given enough input to show that Israel does the what it can do to prevent civilian deaths. Of course, it is debatable if the best way is to use Air Forces. While good for minimizing your own casualities, I doubt that they are as effective in stopping terrorists as boots on the ground.

You do realise that the West Bank would have to be part of any Palestinian state and it most definitely is occupied, right?

I think bigger problem is how should the two separate areas be handled if there is ever going to be peace. One solution (UN level solution) could be to have a single Palestinian state and transfer Palestinian people from Gaza to West Bank and giving the control of Gaza area to Israel, while decreasing the Israeli settlements in the West Bank by the same amount. This would also remove the apartheid style divisions between roads for Palestinians and roads for Israeli.

Enough for today,
Mika

[karajorma]

Well, I actually don't believe in the implied causation. Maybe if you could explain it a little bit better I might notice it.

Well the most important thing that is obvious from the graph is that attacks were commonplace before the pullout. Rocket attacks only went up after Hamas were elected and actually went down under Fatah.

So simplistic comments about how the Gazans rewarded Israel for the pullout by immediately starting attacking them are quickly revealed for the nonsense they are. The true story is that there were moves from Fatah to try to limit the attacks by terrorists. The attacks didn't stop but anyone who thinks that the government of Gaza could make a few phone calls and stop the attacks is an idiot.

The only thing I can see from the graph is that the number of long range military grade attacks has increased since the pullover. Also seen is that since Hamas has came to power, the number of those kind of attacks have increased. Also seen is that averagely 8.5 rockets/mortar shells landed in Israel each day for every day of the year.

Want to find the same figures for the other side instead of simply assuming that the this is all aggression from the Palestinian side?

What does war with Lebanon have to do with Gaza? Or maybe more to the point, what should the war with Lebanon have to do with Gaza?

What should it have to do with Gaza? Nothing. What does it have to do with Gaza? Well it's pretty obvious that an attack on Lebanon is going to result in an increase in terrorist action against Israel. Again only a fool would expect terrorists who already hate Israel to sit on their hands and do nothing while that was going on.

OK, this is the second time you brought this one up. Since this is a national level strategy, I would expect that it is public information in Israel and thus it should be mentioned in the news also. Can you find me a link for it? I also expect to see the reason what benefits are there for choosing somebody else than Abbas.

Cause of course politicians announce the real reason behind their actions all the time. I sure you can find news stories where Bush explains he invaded Iraq for a complex set of reasons that had very little to do with WMDs and much more to do with revenge.

I can however find plenty of debate and op-ed on the matter. For instance the fact that they tried to do it to Yasser Arafat which you asked for proof of earlier is so obviously a fact that it's uncontested in Wikipedia.

Those actions gave Hamas lots of time to get their foot in the door.

As for Abbas his marginalisation was due to him being seen as an Israeli stooge. While he made lots of efforts towards peace he was unable to stop the terrorism against Israel. Israel responded to them in their typical heavy-handed manner. The result was that Abbas came over as bending over backwards to please Israel while unable to stop the civilian deaths.

The marginalisation of Abbas is still on-going BTW. And it will continue to backfire on them. Israel need to talk to Hamas quickly so that Abbas isn't seen as a lame duck. It's doubtful they will and when Hamas get their presidential candidate elected Israel will probably claim that it's proof that the Palestinians don't want peace same as they did when Hamas were elected to government.

I have many times wondered how big influence does USA have in this region by having Israel as an ally. But I'm not sure if that would be the end, US people like Nuclear here could probably answer this question better. Obama could cause differences here, though.

I find it rather hard to believe that the American people would turn a blind eye to genocide. I know for a fact that Europe wouldn't want to have anything to do with them. So let's not continue with the pretty silly argument that Israel could simply wipe out the population of Gaza with no political repercussions.

It all comes back to question do you think that Palestinians have a functional government?

Of course they don't. The second Hamas were elected all the western nations decided that they wouldn't talk to them. You can't do that with a real government. Besides I wouldn't trust Hamas to run a piss up in a brewery anyway.

Splinter has already given enough input to show that Israel does the what it can do to prevent civilian deaths.

Sometimes they try, sometimes they act with blithe disregard for civilian casualties. That was the whole crux of this debate. It probably depends on the soldiers and units involved.

Of course, it is debatable if the best way is to use Air Forces. While good for minimizing your own casualities, I doubt that they are as effective in stopping terrorists as boots on the ground.

I very much doubt it too.

I think bigger problem is how should the two separate areas be handled if there is ever going to be peace. One solution (UN level solution) could be to have a single Palestinian state and transfer Palestinian people from Gaza to West Bank and giving the control of Gaza area to Israel, while decreasing the Israeli settlements in the West Bank by the same amount. This would also remove the apartheid style divisions between roads for Palestinians and roads for Israeli.

That's never going to work. Maybe if you can get Israel to give up an amount of land equal in size to Gaza. But offering to remove settlers who really never should have been there in the first place isn't a solution.

[Liberator]

My solution:

Create a Holy Land Maintenance Organization, transfer ownership to this group and pave over the whole stinking mess and build hotels.  I mean think about it, people make pilgrimages to the Holy Land.  They need a place to stay.

This way everyone wins.  The palestinians get a place to live, food to eat, honest jobs.  Israel gets what it wants which is peace and prosperity.

This has the added benefit of wiping any potential grivances related to where the Israelis live and where the Palestinians live.

[karajorma]

Sounds good if you turn it into the Holy Land amusement park too. In an effort to cut down on global warming you could ban cars and have a guy dressed as Saladin give out horses at the airport.

[Splinter]

It's not fixed at all. You'd only say that if you didn't understand my point at all. How does that comment correspond to Israel's attempts to push Fatah out of power and replace them with someone more to their liking?

It doesn't. You simply took a cheap shot without any way of backing up the meaning in the context in which it was stated.

Now that I read back the whole analogy is messed up... who is taunting whom? You claim Israel sidelined Fatah so does that mean that the guy saying he fudged the other guys mom is Israel or is it somehow reversed in your analogy?

How is this: “Israel backed the Fatah into a corner cause they were dumb enough to think that it would result in someone more to their liking coming along. It was a pretty stupid plan as you can see it blew up in their faces.”

Represented by this: “If I walk into a pub, find the biggest guy and tell him I ****ed his mum, that's a pretty stupid plan too. But that doesn't mean that he's not responsible for the ensuing assault.”

Really confusing.

Israel spent years blockading the PLO and Fatah but the second Hamas are in charge they say that they're only willing to talk peace with Fatah (when they weren't willing with Fatah in charge). And now Israel are trying to do the same thing with Hamas even though it's obvious to anyone with half a brain that the same strategy that deposed moderates to put extremists in power is going to have no effect once you already have extremists in power.

The more you squeeze Hamas, the more they will point out to the Palestinians that it's Israel squeezing them.

“Hamas has refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist. Hamas refused to participate in the 1996 elections because it viewed the Palestinian Authority as illegitimate due to its negotiations with Israel; while it has not changed that stance, it fielded candidates in 2006. Going into the election it had considerable momentum due to unexpected electoral success in the municipal elections in 2005.”

“However, Fatah had been beset by internal strife in advance of the elections, with younger and more popular figures like Mohammed Dahlan, who took part in the negotiations of the 1993 Oslo Accords, and Marwan Barghouti (the latter currently serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail on terrorism charges) levelling allegations of corruption against Fatah leadership.”

“Fatah is "widely seen as being in desperate need of reform", as "the PA's performance has been a story of corruption and incompetence - and Fatah has been tainted." Political analyst Salah Abdel-Shafi told BBC about the difficulties of Fatah leadership: "I think it's very, very serious - it's becoming obvious that they can't agree on anything."”

Seems like the Palestinians have a different view as to why they were elected. Oh And who did we pull out of Gaza for? Who did we open up the supply routes for? Who did we arm?!? Fatah? After the Gaza pullout? That doesn't sound like sidelining to me... so what gives?

The less you squeeze Hamas the more they say “hey look our violent tactics work! Increase the attacks until they pull out completely!” If they can get what they want and get it through “winning” a war that will be a great moral victory as well to say they defeated Israel through violence. Do you even understand Arab culture? If you show weakness you are weak and ripe for replacement. Did you know that they will wear tighter pants because they judge if they can beat someone in a fight by the size of their legs? This is a culture based on domination rule by fear and by might. I'm sorry that doesn't line up with Western views of how “normal people” act but the fact is it's a different world and your right and wrong aren't worth 2 ****s in the ME.

@Splinter

I have to say that I do sympathize with you on a level.
I know how it is to have the truth distorted by foreign news agencies, since it happened here a lot too. Not a nice feeling.

That said, while the situation is similar it also have a few destinct differences, most notably that the fight isn't going on inside your city, inside your country. You're troops are fighting on the other guys turf. And I doubt you as a civilian have gone driving trough Gaza during the bombing to see what's going there with your own eyes.
So I doubt you have personally confirmed information on exactly what was going on in Gaza city.

Heh. Well first of all just on my bus route from home to downtown I pass by 10 suicide bombing attacks sites.

2000 November 2nd. - Israel, Jerusalem: a Islamic Jihad car bomb exploded near the Mahane Yehuda market; 2 people died and 10 were injured.

2001 August 9th. - Israel, Jerusalem: Suicide bombing at the Sbarro pizzeria on the corner of King George Street and Jaffa Road; 15 people, including 7 children, died and around 150 were injured.

2001 December 1st. - Israel, Jerusalem, Ben Yehuda Street: explosive devices were detonated by two Hamas suicide bombers close to 11:30 p.m on Saturday night at the pedestrian mall in the center of the city. A car bomb exploded nearby 20 minutes later; 11 people died and up to 180 were injured.

2002 January 27th. - Israel, Jerusalem, Jaffa: a female terrorist, identified as a Fatah member, armed with more than 10 kilos of explosives, blew herself up; 2 people died and more than 150 were injured.

2002 March 9th. - Israel, Jerusalem, Rehavia neighborhood: a Hamas suicide bomber blew himself up at 22:30 h Saturday night in the crowded Moment cafe at the corner of Aza and Ben-Maimon streets in the center of the city; 11 people died and 54 were injured.

2002 March 21st. - Israel, Jerusalem, King George Street: a Fatah al-Aqsa Brigades terrorist detonated a bomb, packed with metal spikes and nails, in a crowd of shoppers; 3 people died and 86 were injured.

2002 April 12th. - Israel, Jerusalem, Jaffa road: a female Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades suicide bomber detonated a powerful charge at a bus stop near the entrance to Mahane Yehuda open-air market; 6 people died and 104 were injured.

2002 June 18th. - Israel, Patt junction: Hamas suicide bombing in Egged bus no. 32A traveling from Gilo to the center of Jerusalem with many schoolchildren aboard; 19 people died and 74 were injured.

(That is the 2nd bus stop from my house and my friend just missed that bus... unfortunately five of her school  friends weren't so lucky and they are all dead.)

2003 June 11th. - Israel, Jerusalem, Egged bus #14A outside the Clal building on Jaffa Road: suicide bombing; responsibility claimed by Hamas; 17 people died and more than 100 were injured.

So to say that I have not had danger at my doorstep is a grave misunderstanding of what I have gone through.

And you are right. As a civlian I havn't gone driving through Gaza city to see what is going on. I did however serve 3 and a half years in the IDF and I have seen enough of the Gaza strip and Gaza city and the West Bank and Lebanon to last me a lifetime. I also have friends still in these areas now. There is no shortage of “first hand knowledge” of the situation here on my part.

While I conciede that the information I have may not be completely trustworthy, again, I have to start with something. And in this I draw on the experiences from the conflict here and make comparisons.
If here, in years of conflict, no city was bombed even remotely as much as Gaza city, if in shelling of cities here the death count was not even close to the one there...what do you expect me to conclude?
If 100 destroyed houses and 20 dead are considered "overshelling" and a war crime, when the hell should the bombardment of Gaza city be in comparison? You tell me.

Were 100 houses being used as military installations? I don't know the situation where you are. I don't know who was fighting who and for what? Who started it? Did they target non combatants? Did they use human shields by placing themselves among a civilian population? What are their goals? What were they fighting for? Who considered it “overshelling” and a war crime? These are all things that come into play I cannot tell you anything until I know what the situation was. The fact of the matter is depending on the answers to those questions  it may or may not have been a war crime and it may or may not have been overshelling.

And you really cannot tie any situation that has been before to this one since it is unlike any situation that has been before. Every situation is unique and has it's own variables and different factors and no one can come and say well it was like this here so that's how it must be here as well.

[karajorma]

Really confusing.

Not really. Mika was claiming that I was absolving the Palestinians of any guilt due to the actions of Israel. I was pointing out that there are situations where one person can goad another into an action but that this doesn't absolve both parties of their responsibility.

Israel made Fatah look like they were incapable of running Gaza by not giving them more breathing space to actually do something about Hamas themselves. It was a stupid idea and they were warned repeatedly about doing it. They choose to do it anyway. The result was Hamas being elected and an increase in violence. Is that only Israel's fault? Of course not. Is Israel at least partially responsible for it? Of course it is.

Do you even understand Arab culture?

I find your assumptions about me not understanding Arabs ****ing hilarious for reasons that are fairly obvious to anyone who has been paying attention.

Seems like the Palestinians have a different view as to why they were elected. Oh And who did we pull out of Gaza for? Who did we open up the supply routes for? Who did we arm?!? Fatah? After the Gaza pullout? That doesn't sound like sidelining to me... so what gives?

You sidelined the PLO, Fatah on the the other hand were made to seem ineffectual. As I pointed out to Mika he was left in a situation where no one believed he was actually in charge or that he had the ability to stop the deaths of civilians. That opened the door for Hamas.

You should have left Abbas to run his own country instead of responding to every single rocket attack by shelling or bombing the positions and then claiming that civilian casualties are simply collateral damage. You should have helped Fatah more with the policing of Gaza. Yes it's true that Hamas don't recognise the state of Israel. Guess what? The IRA didn't recognise British jurisdiction over Northern Ireland and still don't now. Whether they recognise you or not is unimportant. You need to get the entire state of Palestine to the situation where their lives have gotten better through peaceful means. "Arab mindset" or not no one is going to want to go back to violence once that happens except the extremists.

You like to claim you understand the Arab mindset but let's put it this way, what do you really think would have happened if following Fatah's rise to power the deaths of civilians had stopped?

Of course that's never going to happen cause you believe you can "win" this war.

[TrashMan]

Heh. Well first of all just on my bus route from home to downtown I pass by 10 suicide bombing attacks sites.
*SNIPPED LIST*

Why is it that every time I want to discuss the bombing of Gaza city, people insist of bringing up prior terrorist actions?  (that have completely no bearing on the issue at hand)

And you are right. As a civlian I haven't gone driving through Gaza city to see what is going on. I did however serve 3 and a half years in the IDF and I have seen enough of the Gaza strip and Gaza city and the West Bank and Lebanon to last me a lifetime. I also have friends still in these areas now. There is no shortage of “first hand knowledge” of the situation here on my part.

I wasn't asking about the "specific situation", but the very attack on Gaza City. Which you just confirmed you weren't there to witness.

Were 100 houses being used as military installations? I don't know the situation where you are. I don't know who was fighting who and for what? Who started it? Did they target non combatants? Did they use human shields by placing themselves among a civilian population? What are their goals? What were they fighting for? Who considered it “overshelling” and a war crime? These are all things that come into play I cannot tell you anything until I know what the situation was. The fact of the matter is depending on the answers to those questions  it may or may not have been a war crime and it may or may not have been overshelling.

Yes, houses were used for military purposes. Yes, there were non-uniformed combatants present too.
The war started when croatian people declared independence but Seriba didn't like it, so it invaded under the pretense of protecting the serbs in croatia from prosecution and violence (informational warfare).
The EU and Haag considered it overshelling.
Any more questions?

And you really cannot tie any situation that has been before to this one since it is unlike any situation that has been before. Every situation is unique and has it's own variables and different factors and no one can come and say well it was like this here so that's how it must be here as well.

Bollocks. You're not special. Get that in your head.
Thousands of dead people - women and children - cannot be justified in any shape, way or form.
The "but it's a special case" is nothing more than an excuse to validate any excessive use of force or any civilian casualties.

[Scotty]

Thousands of dead people cannot be justified in any shape, way or form.

I find this naive.

[TrashMan]

Thousands of dead people cannot be justified in any shape, way or form.

I find this naive.

I find every other way of thinking morally sick and arrogant.

[Scotty]

So if a thousand soldiers die to save a million civilians, you would find that sick and arrogant if I said that it justified their sacrifice?

[TrashMan]

AHEM!

Thousands of dead people - women and children - cannot be justified in any shape, way or form.

While I do consider wars a terrible and stupid affair, soldiers are combatants, and even if their deaths are also tragic, they did go into this willingly with full knowledge of the consequences. And they were armed.


And it's not only a matter of the number of civilians killed - it's also the timeframe and method.

[karajorma]

So if a thousand soldiers die to save a million civilians, you would find that sick and arrogant if I said that it justified their sacrifice?

Let's try reversing that though. What if a million civilians die to save a thousand soldiers?

[Turambar]

What if fifty Palestinians have to die so that 10 Israelis can build houses where the rubble of the Palestinian houses used to be?

[Scotty]

What if fifty Palestinians have to die so that 10 Israelis can build houses where the rubble of the Palestinian houses used to be?

There were two, if I recall, and it was in retaliation for the killing of four Israeli troops.  Granted, not constructive (lol), but also not for Israelis to build there.

Link.

[Liberator]

Ima be a hard-case.

Civilian casualties are tragic, no matter what, but it's war, they are also unavoidable.

Nobody quotes civilian vs. soldier casualty rates for WW2 or Korea or Vietnam.  BTW, at last count, the USA and coalition forces in Iraq had lost about 6000 soldiers to around 15000 or 2000 enemy combatants with something like 3000 civilian deaths, accidental or otherwise.

When you are running a check point and a car comes running up, not slowing down and seemingly ignoring your hails, in a wartime situation, you always assume the worst.  Try and disable the vehicle sure, but these days that's not enough since the vehicle is probably the weapon.

[Turambar]

http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&Do=&ID=37451

their farmland was coming right for us! we had no choice!

[karajorma]

Civilian casualties are tragic, no matter what, but it's war, they are also unavoidable.

Only if you don't avoid the war in the first place. The invasion of Lebanon resulted in over one thousand civilian deaths to save the lives of two soldiers who weren't even saved in the end anyway.

Even after 9/11 America tried diplomacy with Afghanistan first. Considering that the action was from terrorists and not the Lebanese government maybe an invasion shouldn't have been the first response.

[Liberator]

All things being equal kara, I'd agree, avoiding the war is preferable, but crying over what amounts to spilled milk after you have the cake baking is kinda petty.

Let's be clear, I DON'T like civvie deaths.  I do, however, accept that once conflict has started, they are unavoidable.

Of course, we could be civilized about it like Eminiarrs and the Vendikans from A Taste of Armageddon, then war would never stop and you could have your perfect society all at the same time.  WIN WIN!

[karajorma]

All things being equal kara, I'd agree, avoiding the war is preferable, but crying over what amounts to spilled milk after you have the cake baking is kinda petty.

And what exactly is the cake in this analogy?

[Liberator]

Cake = Open conflict

Continuing with the analogy before I go to bed, spilling the milk is messy and deplorable.  And as a good cook, you can make every effort to clean it up and not spill milk in the future.  But, it will eventually happen again, and crying over it doesn't achieve anything, except to make you feel bad for a little bit then vow to never do it again.

Stepping out of the analogy for bit.  This is what makes us better than the people we are fighting, we actually care about what happens to the people around us and between us and them.  They don't, they'll plow threw how ever many civilians, innocent bystanders and whatever else to kill and maim and torture(ooo I said a bad word)and convert by the sword(something Christianity doesn't do now and hasn't done for centuries), simply because they are barbarians.  And they are at our gates.

The trick will be to see if we allow ourselves to be starved out like the Romans did.