[MP-Ryan]

-snip-

What I think many people miss is that Hamas and Likud are in two different leagues when it comes to scumbaggery.  It's also notable that Likud democratically controls the State of Israel, with its existing checks and balances, for the moment.  Hamas controls Gaza until they get ousted by force of arms or concede to voluntarily give up control (ha!).  It's like saying central Canada and Antarctica are both cold in the winter.  While true, central Canada is a hell of a lot less cold in its winter than Antarctica.

Likud is full of scumbags that oppose the two-state solution and are willing to carry out operations in Palestinian territories on dubious grounds, while attempting to minimize civilian casualties in at least some semblance of an attempt to follow international law.  Hamas is willing to murder unarmed civilians (and I actually wasn't referring to the three teens in the last post) and shoot rockets indiscriminately toward civilian population centers.  The only thing that allows people to try to equate these things is that Hamas' weapons aren't that sophisticated and Israel is capable of intercepting the worst of them.  If Hamas could hit Israel with advanced weapons and kill hundreds or thousands of civilians, they would without a second thought.  Therein lies the difference between Hamas and Likud - Likud at least has to pay some attention to international law and try to protect civilian life.  Hamas doesn't give a **** about the people in Gaza or Israel.

And as for all Hamas has to make a point being the rockets - this isn't true.  Gaza has people.  Gaza has journalists.  Gaza has social media.  Gaza has a hell of a lot better chance of garnering widespread sympathy without the scumbag terrorists in charge of it flinging live weapons indiscriminately at civilians.  The rockets are literally the worst thing Gaza can do, short of flinging something even more deadly.

I'm sorry but I have to completely disagree with you. Israel should be forced to come to the table and talk peace now or it should be left to its own devices. But while they have America backing them up they know that they don't need to talk peace. The price for this is that Hamas will occasionally make largely ineffectual attacks on Israel. Likud simply don't care about this. The price is low enough to pay if it allows them to continue working on their Zionist view of what Israel should be.

They are quite happy to let Hamas continue attacking civilians to give them a rational to go on doing what they doing.

By demanding a stupid precondition which will never happen you allow Israel to continue their current policies. You fall right into the trap Likud want you to fall into. This is exactly the kind of naive "but they started it!" argument that has led to the situation dragging on as long as it has. It doesn't matter who started it. It matters that it ends now. Stop being part of the problem.

If Israel were left to its own devices today, it wouldn't make one iota of difference.  There is literally nobody left that poses a serious and immediate existential threat to the entire state of Israel in practical terms, which is the only reason foreign aid has been historically necessary.  Syria is too busy being in civil war.  Jordan wants nothing to do with it.  Egypt is a shambles.  Iraq is in the middle of a theocratic genocide.  Iran is too far away and frankly too smart to try picking a fight.  The Saudis are too beholden to the Americans and Europeans to make serious waves.  And if anyone started banding together to try to hit at Israel, they're sitting on a pile of nuclear weapons.  Who likes that reality?  It's not foreign aid that's preventing a serious engagement by Israel in the peace process.  It's excuses.  So long as they have the excuse of attacks on their civilians, Western nations will not place major pressure on Israel to settle, because none of them want a world in which a major power can be forced into concessions at the bargaining table at the point of a gun toward its populace [and quite rightly so].  This is the biggest reason why the historical doctrine of "we don't negotiate with terrorists" exists in principle, if not always in complete practice.

When you give Hamas even a slight pass and say Israel should sit down at the table while the attacks continue (a ceasefire is a different matter altogether), you suddenly have turned every humanitarian-minded foreign policy and global political mind from being your ally to your enemy, because in the grand political calculus that sets an awful precedent that will destabilize any potential peace deal.  If Hamas can win concessions by targeting civilians, there is no reason for them to ever stop.  And they won't.  If you think for a single solitary second that Hamas would be content and never hit at Israel again with a functional two-state solution along the 1967 borders if we could have it set up tomorrow, you're delusional.  The same goes for Likud's expansionist bull****.  But you can't get rid of Likud without getting rid of Hamas first.  Likud exists and holds power because organizations like Hamas exist; without them, Israeli moderates run the show and Likud is forced back to the fringes where they frankly belong.

As I've said from my first comments:  the problem is Hamas, and/or movements like it.

[MP-Ryan]

And as a matter of demonstration, if anyone here actually believes Hamas' beliefs or tactics have even a single solitary shred of legitimacy to them, I strongly suggest you do some reading about what IS (formerly ISIS) is up to these days in Syria and Iraq, because that's a preview of a Palestinian state with Hamas in charge.

[DarkBasilisk]

If Israel were left to its own devices today, it wouldn't make one iota of difference.

Well for one, my tax dollars wouldn't be wasted on someone that doesn't even need help "defending" themselves. So we'd have that going for us.

When you give Hamas even a slight pass and say Israel should sit down at the table while the attacks continue (a ceasefire is a different matter altogether), you suddenly have turned every humanitarian-minded foreign policy and global political mind from being your ally to your enemy, because in the grand political calculus that sets an awful precedent that will destabilize any potential peace deal.

You see. That makes sense without any other context, but still doesn't change what Kara and I said. Complete cessation of attacks will NEVER happen. It's pretty damn impressive that it was down to 44 in 2013 (-98% relative to previous year). If that is not a good enough standard for peace, nothing short of 0 attacks will be. Which again, will never happen. We can't keep the United States even completely free of rebellious or terrorist attacks for a year... so no. If you want 0, it's never going to happen. A -98% reduction in attacks is more than enough to trigger peace table discussions without "enabling terrorism".

Anyone that wants to quibble over that remaining 2% is either being far too idealistic, or not actually interested in peace.

EDIT: As an extra note. Groups other than Hamas generally claimed responsibility very loudly for the rocket attacks that did happen in 2013. Also apparently the complete total is 52 rockets, 18 mortars. Still the lowest number in over a decade.

[karajorma]

What I think many people miss is that Hamas and Likud are in two different leagues when it comes to scumbaggery.

No. What many people miss is any logic in siding with the least wrong party when both of them are still very, very wrong.  When one person states that dinosaurs were insects and one says that they were fish you say that they are BOTH wrong.

You can go on and on all you like about how Hamas would have a higher death count if they were able to but you assume facts not in evidence. If Hamas could kill thousands of Israelis perhaps that might actually end the war since Israel wouldn't be able to do what they are currently doing. Possibly not but the simple fact is that it's irrelevant anyway. Hamas don't have access to that kind of weaponry.

You're doing the same crap that has caused this situation to drag on for years. Claiming that since you can "prove" the Palestinians are worse there is no reason to talk with them.

If Israel were left to its own devices today, it wouldn't make one iota of difference.  There is literally nobody left that poses a serious and immediate existential threat to the entire state of Israel in practical terms, which is the only reason foreign aid has been historically necessary.[

So why are the West still funding them then?

Western nations will not place major pressure on Israel to settle, because none of them want a world in which a major power can be forced into concessions at the bargaining table at the point of a gun toward its populace [and quite rightly so].  This is the biggest reason why the historical doctrine of "we don't negotiate with terrorists" exists in principle, if not always in complete practice.

When you give Hamas even a slight pass and say Israel should sit down at the table while the attacks continue (a ceasefire is a different matter altogether), you suddenly have turned every humanitarian-minded foreign policy and global political mind from being your ally to your enemy, because in the grand political calculus that sets an awful precedent that will destabilize any potential peace deal.  If Hamas can win concessions by targeting civilians, there is no reason for them to ever stop.  And they won't.  If you think for a single solitary second that Hamas would be content and never hit at Israel again with a functional two-state solution along the 1967 borders if we could have it set up tomorrow, you're delusional.  The same goes for Likud's expansionist bull****.  But you can't get rid of Likud without getting rid of Hamas first.  Likud exists and holds power because organizations like Hamas exist; without them, Israeli moderates run the show and Likud is forced back to the fringes where they frankly belong.

As I've said from my first comments:  the problem is Hamas, and/or movements like it.

Yet Hamas only exist because of Israel. And sitting back with a "We don't negotiate with terrorists" attitude won't get rid of them. Nor will Israel's current policy. Nor will sending in ground troops.

What you forget is that in many cases negotiations with terrorists does work (c.f South Africa and Northern Ireland). Notice I say negotiations, not concessions. You keep equating the two and they are not the same thing. Gaza is also in a strange position of having the terrorists as the government.

You keep claiming Hamas are the government of Gaza but when you want to avoid talking about peace they are suddenly terrorists and not a government. If you aren't going to talk to the government of the country you are at war with about peace, you will never have peace.

[Mr. Vega]

And as a matter of demonstration, if anyone here actually believes Hamas' beliefs or tactics have even a single solitary shred of legitimacy to them, I strongly suggest you do some reading about what IS (formerly ISIS) is up to these days in Syria and Iraq, because that's a preview of a Palestinian state with Hamas in charge.

Do I really have to say this? Very well. Hamas is a political party of some legitimacy within Palestine (their electoral victory in 2006 was as much due to corruption allegations towards Fatah as anything else). They are also a terrorist organization guilty of deliberate attacks upon civilian targets. Their targeting of residential districts in Israel with rockets is a war crime. Almost every action Hamas has engaged in is detrimental to the goal of peace. And yet their actions have still been more conductive towards a peaceful settlement than the government of Israel, which has killed, on average, two Palestinian children every week for the last 14 years. The government of Israel rejects the possibility of a two state solution because its objective, as its own party platforms state, is the conquest and annexation of the West Bank. The destruction of Gaza is conductive to that goal because without Gaza the Palestinians living in the West Bank will be isolated from the outside world and trapped between Israel and a hostile Jordan. Hamas is a terrorist organization, and Israel is an aggressive state committed to continued expansion, over the security interests of its own people.

What holds it back is its dependence upon US economic, military, and diplomatic support, without which it would be unable to continue it's expansionist policies much as South African was unable to continue Apartheid after Reagan quietly ended US support due to increasing public pressure. If Israel is too aggressive American public opinion will compel a change in US policy that would be disastrous to Israel goals. Hence Israel tries to keep its aggression as low profile and PR-friendly as possible; the steady construction of illegal settlements in the West Bank, scattered but continued incidents of violence and brutality against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank so as not to provoke too much western media attention, the blockade and imprisonment of the Gazan population - enough to make the population suffer dearly but not quite enough to cause a PR-damaging humanitarian crisis (as detailed in Chomsky's article), and finally,  bombings of heavily populated areas once it has waited for Hamas to give it provocation it can sell to the uninformed US public (sometimes without provocation, as in 2006 in punishing the Palestinian population for voting the wrong way in a free election, or in 2014 due to the killings of the three Israeli boys for which Israel still cannot present evidence for), which will of course result in escalating counterattacks by Hamas which will justify the initial bombings.

The claims of Israel that it gives care to avoid civilian casualties simply do not hold up when you look at Israel's choice of targets, which include power, water, and sewage treatment plants (repeatedly), hospitals (repeatedly), UN schools acting as refugee centers, and if available, little boys playing on the beach. They warn civilians to evacuate their homes so they can flee to areas that are also under Israeli bombardment; no place in Gaza is safe. These attacks are not conductive to the long term security of the Israeli people; they create more terrorists among the survivors and hatred abroad. But they do make sense if the goal is to try to break the will of the Palestinians to resist the gradual conquest of their land (which is course does not even belong to them according to Israel). It is not like Apartheid; with Apartheid at least the Boers needed blacks for their labor force, so they had to invest some resources into making the Bantustans livable. Israel by contrast does not need the Palestianians for laborers anymore. What they want is to get rid of the Palestinian questionproblem entirely, by any means necessary.

So yes, Hamas are terrorists. They're a worse version of the IRA. I have no sympathy for them. Nor do I have any sympathy for the Israeli government which is committed to a slow, grinding, murderous war of conquest, damn the consequences to the Palestinians or their own people, whom they have duped into believing that this slaughter of innocents is morally justified and will somehow make them safer (an experience Americans are all too familiar with). I have sympathy for everyone else. Have I made my opinion perfectly clear?

Here's a picture of the father of one of the boys who was shelled by an Israeli gunboat off the coast while playing football on the beach, for your enjoyment.

[karajorma]

Thank you for summing up my position more eloquently than I've been able till now. y a

I'll only add that MP_Ryan seems to be incapable of realising that it isn't only Hamas who breaks the ceasefires.

[MP-Ryan]

When you give Hamas even a slight pass and say Israel should sit down at the table while the attacks continue (a ceasefire is a different matter altogether), you suddenly have turned every humanitarian-minded foreign policy and global political mind from being your ally to your enemy, because in the grand political calculus that sets an awful precedent that will destabilize any potential peace deal.  If Hamas can win concessions by targeting civilians, there is no reason for them to ever stop.  And they won't.  If you think for a single solitary second that Hamas would be content and never hit at Israel again with a functional two-state solution along the 1967 borders if we could have it set up tomorrow, you're delusional.  The same goes for Likud's expansionist bull****.  But you can't get rid of Likud without getting rid of Hamas first.  Likud exists and holds power because organizations like Hamas exist; without them, Israeli moderates run the show and Likud is forced back to the fringes where they frankly belong.

As I've said from my first comments:  the problem is Hamas, and/or movements like it.

Quoting myself, because it seems the other three people who posted since didn't bother to read it.

All of your arguments are great.  They demonstrate - admirably - that Israel aren't "the good guys."  Of course, I haven't been saying Israel ARE the good guys, so I'm not entirely sure why you're bothering to try to make that point in my direction.

What I have been arguing - repeatedly - is that if one supports a long-term peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian territories, one cannot then argue that Israel should sit down and negotiate with Hamas while attacks are ongoing against its civilian population (and no, Dark, the US has never done this and no, kara, neither did the UK with the IRA).  A ceasefire, however temporary, changes that calculus, regardless of whether it is broken periodically on single occasions.  Nowhere have I said that the condition of negotiation should be all attacks out of Gaza stop permanently never to happen on occasion during the negotiations because I know full well that is unrealistic.  The idea that Hamas, which is at least somewhat organized militarily, stop and actively try to prevent additional attacks while a ceasefire is in effect is.

I have never claimed Hamas is not the government of Gaza.  Rather, I have repeatedly pointed out that Hamas was elected as the government of Gaza and now runs the territory undemocratically entirely by force, with a minority of popular support.  They also happen to be a terrorist organization whose ultimate goals mirror that of the Muslim Brotherhood and, most recently, IS.  These are all very good reasons to minimize Hamas' influence on the peace process to the greatest possible extent.  A two-state solution with Hamas at its present level of influence (most of which is due to force projection) is untenable, because, again, their goals are incompatible with a long-term peace process.

Vega brought up the choice of Israeli targets.  While Israel has predominantly hit at fighting forces, rocket launch sites, and personnel staging areas (which have also included some supposed safe zones due to Hamas hiding in them, an action I doubt believe to be excuseable regardless), they also hit at critical infrastructure... though not consistently and typically not enough to destroy it outright (while Gaza's sole power station is damaged, it's not a smoking crater so there is some restraint being realized).  There is a tactical and political purpose to this, and it's to make Gaza as a whole pay for the actions of Hamas.  Brutal political calculus?  Absolutely.  Potential war crime?  Maybe.  Effective? Definitely.  Hamas does not command popular support, and more and more Gazans are wishing for a return of the PA government.

I want to see a long-term peace agreement in the region as or more badly than anyone.  However, Hamas is a long term security threat to the stability of the entire region, and an even greater one where they operate in a state without blockades, controls, and with an effectively unarmed government of the PA as their sole opposition.  Want to see Palestine turn into a fundamentalist, rights-abusing caliphate?  Negotiate a two-state solution with Hamas at its current level of power.  They'd take Palestine by force of arms in less than a year, and we'd be back worse off than where everyone in the region started.

[karajorma]

What do you call the situation before Brother's Keeper? Before 2006?

If you want what you call a ceasefire you'll never, ever get it. Especially when Israel will just provoke Hamas into breaking it as soon as things get too peaceful for their liking (as they did this time).

All you are succeeding in doing is allowing Israel to continue what they are doing.


I'll also add this here. Since recognition of Israel by Hamas seems to be a sticking point for you.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/in-2006-letter-to-bush-haniyeh-offered-compromise-with-israel-1.257213

[Mr. Vega]

All you are succeeding in doing is allowing Israel to continue what they are doing.

Which is murder, MPRyan. It can't even be called collateral damage. Eighty percent of the dead and wounded are civilians. Was the football game on the beach a staging area?

[Luis Dias]

the ball was clearly a bomb comeon

[MP-Ryan]

What do you call the situation before Brother's Keeper? Before 2006?

Periods when the entire West should have been pressuring Israel to complete negotiations with the PA?

The thing I find most tragic is that the activists who are most likely to excuse Hamas go suddenly silent and ignore the situation nearly as much as everyone else when Israel quits hitting back at Gaza.  Part of the bloody problem.

If you want what you call a ceasefire you'll never, ever get it. Especially when Israel will just provoke Hamas into breaking it as soon as things get too peaceful for their liking (as they did this time).

All you are succeeding in doing is allowing Israel to continue what they are doing.

Right.  And the deaths of 3 Israeli teens wherein the authorities in both Gaza and the West Bank did not aid in the capture of the perpetrators had nothing to do with it.  Hamas' direct action or not, israel has arrested and is prosecuting the 6 people they identified as being involved in the retaliatory kidnapping and killing.  If Hamas and the PA want to be a government of a foreign state, act like it; enforce the rule of law.  Of course, if Hamas in particular did that they'd have to throw themselves out of power because they're a bunch of armed thugs that run a terrorist outfit, not a real government on behalf of the people of Gaza.

Again, I genuinely feel for the people of Gaza and the West Bank, I think they've been dealt a rotten hand, and I am firmly on their side in the grand political scheme of things.  That said, Israel bowing to Hamas' terrorism, as opposed to negotiating with the PA in good faith, is a recipe for long-term disaster.  What the West should be pushing for is an Israeli ongoing negotiation with the PA in the West Bank regardless of what Gaza and Hamas are up to, and minimize Hamas' involvement in the peace process.  It ensures that if an accord can be reached, the PA and Israel can function as allies to track down, prosecute, and end both the oppression of Gaza by Hamas, and the terrorist attacks on Israel.

There's a theme to my posts, guys:  Hamas is the problem.  Minimizing, marginalizing, and destroying them should be the objective in addition to a peace agreement with the Palestinian territories and their people.

I'll also add this here. Since recognition of Israel by Hamas seems to be a sticking point for you.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/in-2006-letter-to-bush-haniyeh-offered-compromise-with-israel-1.257213

Today is August 8 2014.  The Hamas Charter, the document that governs their movement, still calls for the destruction of Israel and does not accept the two-state solution.  The Likud version still calls for settlements and opposes the two-state solution as well.  Likud can be voted out.  Hamas can't.

[MP-Ryan]

All you are succeeding in doing is allowing Israel to continue what they are doing.

Which is murder, MPRyan. It can't even be called collateral damage. Eighty percent of the dead and wounded are civilians. Was the football game on the beach a staging area?

And Hamas is known to intentionally shield their forces, weapons, and staging areas with civilians.  This has been documented by independent sources many times.

As for the beach, if you have evidence to suggest Israel either intentionally or negligently targeted civilians (period), the ICC in The Hague would love to see it.

[Luis Dias]

Likud can be voted out and still it was voted in.

[Aardwolf]

So, two things being said...

1. zomg you exploded a thing
2. zomg they are surrounding their launch sites with civilians

Maybe it's been implied, but hasn't been explicitly stated... were there actually rockets being launched from these "absurd" airstrike targets?

One of the strangest examples... I don't know exactly what a "UN school" entails, but it seems to me that if something is operated by the UN, Hamas isn't going to be able to come in and use it as a staging area. How does that work?

If a functioning hospital were being used as a launch site, I could maybe go along with an airstrike. Maybe. But if it's anything less than an actual launch site (e.g. "they're storing weapons there" or "some enemy personnel are there") an airstrike is totally absurd.



All of this still assumes that the airstrikes actually had some immediate-short-term effect of making Israelis safer.



So now I hear talk of Israel pulling out its ground forces? Wtf, finish the damn job!

[Lorric]

One of the strangest examples... I don't know exactly what a "UN school" entails, but it seems to me that if something is operated by the UN, Hamas isn't going to be able to come in and use it as a staging area. How does that work?

You might find these useful:

http://www.unrwa.org/who-we-are
http://www.unrwa.org/what-we-do/education
http://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/press-releases/unrwa-strongly-condemns-placement-rockets-school

I'm not fully sure, but it seems like this is an agency funded by the UN and doesn't actually involve anything in military terms, but is there to provide a variety of social services.

[Mr. Vega]

So, two things being said...

1. zomg you exploded a thing
2. zomg they are surrounding their launch sites with civilians

Maybe it's been implied, but hasn't been explicitly stated... were there actually rockets being launched from these "absurd" airstrike targets?

One of the strangest examples... I don't know exactly what a "UN school" entails, but it seems to me that if something is operated by the UN, Hamas isn't going to be able to come in and use it as a staging area. How does that work?

If a functioning hospital were being used as a launch site, I could maybe go along with an airstrike. Maybe. But if it's anything less than an actual launch site (e.g. "they're storing weapons there" or "some enemy personnel are there") an airstrike is totally absurd.



All of this still assumes that the airstrikes actually had some immediate-short-term effect of making Israelis safer.



So now I hear talk of Israel pulling out its ground forces? Wtf, finish the damn job!

Hamas has occasionally tried to hide weapons in UN schools. Which is enough for Israel to justify the bombing of refugees.

[MP-Ryan]

In the case of at least one of the hits on/near the school, Israeli forces took fire from that location.  To my knowledge the other instance has not yet been fully investigated, but is in the process of it.

Not that this dismisses the fact that Israeli forces should have been able to figure out it was a bloody school also full of refugees and instead sent in ground forces to begin with in both cases.  Israel might be at least minimizing some civilian losses, but they could damn well do a better job of it.

[Phantom Hoover]

but mp-ryan nobody would take israel seriously if they hadn't bombed those refugees, and besides it's the refugees' fault in the first place for voting hamas

[Mr. Vega]

Just like when bin Laden said American civilians were fair game because of who they had voted for!

[Mr. Vega]

All you are succeeding in doing is allowing Israel to continue what they are doing.

Which is murder, MPRyan. It can't even be called collateral damage. Eighty percent of the dead and wounded are civilians. Was the football game on the beach a staging area?

And Hamas is known to intentionally shield their forces, weapons, and staging areas with civilians.  This has been documented by independent sources many times.

As for the beach, if you have evidence to suggest Israel either intentionally or negligently targeted civilians (period), the ICC in The Hague would love to see it.

http://m.aljazeera.com/story/201472316293283952

You were saying?