BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 11:32 AM

"He claims that Israel is guilty of other unspecified war crimes,"
So the claim that he said that only Hamas is guilty of war crimes
"that Hamas are the ones perpetrating war crimes against Israel and not the other way round."
is not correct.
"he DOES state that the Hamas rockest are each war crimes"
Old news - no "moment of extreme candour".
The rockets, which have killed around twenty Israelis in 12 years are arguably a war crime.
The now more than 2000 dead in the latest (one of four) invasions of Gaza, if not war crimes in themselves, have included many such crimes.
Israel's part in Sabra Shatila was a crime against humanity which was never brought to court.
As with all casualty figures in these conflicts, Israel's war crimes and crimes against humanity far outweigh those of Gaza.
A leading Hamas figure has now put his hands up to War Crimes - do you think we will have to wait long before someone from the other side does the same?
I'm not sure how long I can hold my breath.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: bobad
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 06:52 PM

Gaza corpse photo op for gullible Western media fail

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: bobad
Date: 20 Aug 14 - 07:16 PM

Hamas made its contempt for Israelis evident in a music video produced early in the war, "Strike, Carry Out Terror Attacks," in which listeners were told they should "annihilate all the Zionists" because Israelis "cannot endure war" and "are like spider webs when they encounter knights." The song, written in Hebrew and meant as psychological warfare, secured the opposite effect as it became the anthem of Israeli soldiers, for whom it symbolized the bloodthirstiness against which they were fighting. Today's attacks continue the pattern of assuming incorrectly that further violence and threats will break Israelis' spirit and lead to capitulation.

Strike, Carry Out Terror Attacks

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 04:13 AM

"Hamas made its contempt for Israelis"
Do you know when it's going to be available - quite catchy?
Seems to be a war song made in wartime and aimed at Zionist extremism.
Can't see the point of your - Live-Link item - your propaganda machine seems to be running out of petrol
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 04:30 AM

Talk about singing to keep your spirits up in the dark! It's actually a terribly funny song; totally hilarious; I mean,

High-lair-eye-ouce!!!

Unless, maybe, they did win against 7 invading armies in 1948, & again in 6 days in 1967, by being like cobwebs & mice & hiding behind walls.

Absolutely bloody priceless. They should go & sing it at the Edinburgh Fringe; would walk the comedy prize, eh?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 05:00 AM

"Talk about singing to keep your spirits up in the dark! It's actually a terribly funny song; totally hilarious; I mean, "
Yo sond as if yu are gloating over the results of a massacre Mike - we won eh?
I'm sure the 2000 dead are pissing themselves - only got them selves to blame for not surrendering
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 05:10 AM

Don't know where you extrapolate all that from at all, Jim. I was simply reviewing the song -- I am a folk music critic of long standing, remember? If you want to paint all these triumphalist pictures, carry on: but the models occur purely in your imagination.

But, then, as has been remarked umpteen times before, by as many different posters, you are adept at seeing what you have decided in advance to see, no matter what happens actually to be there!

Your hobby innit. Carry on! Enjoy!!!

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Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 05:20 AM

Sound like that to me mike - musically, i find it less offensive than many of our current pop pieces - as commentary, its no different than many of the wartime songs that 'kept us going through the dark days'
As for its content - listened to 'Rule Brittania' or @Land of Hope and Glory' lately
There are a lot worse.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 05:39 AM

Those might be foolishly triumphal in general terms, Jim; but they don't sink to the stupidity of belittling the demonstrable & undoubted achievements of manifestly several-times victorious adversaries.

Do you really not find it even just an itty-bitty bit absurd, to denounce the army that has overwhelmingly defeated your allies, not once, not twice, but three times, as 'cobwebs' & 'mice' who can be easily exterminated despite their habit of 'hiding behind walls' instead of fighting?

Oh, come on, Jim. We all know which side you are on in all this; but do please recognise patently absurd whistling·in·the·dark when you see it, and stop being quite so idiotically po-faced!

Regards
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Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 06:48 AM

...& anyhow, Jim, for 200+ years after James Thomson wrote those stirring words, Britannia did rule the waves, at that; and it would be foolish to try and deny it.

♫♫Bold Nelson's Praise I mean to sing...!♫♫

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Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 07:04 AM

"but they don't sink to the stupidity of belittling the demonstrable "
Never found anything stupid about not surrendering in a battle which is ongoing Mike
There was never any doubt who would win shooting war
There is no doubt that Israel has continued aggressive and predatory policies which have ghettoised the Palestinian people with a fair amount of success.   
As far as I'm concerned "whistling in the dark" is tantamount to surrender.
Those who don't do that have my admiration to say the least
It remains to be seen who has won the hearts and minds of the world in all this - I know who have mine.
Yes Britannia did rule the waves - some of us are not too happy about the consequences of their doing so
Won't ask which side you are on - in any of this
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 07:08 AM

Ending aggression is not to surrender.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Aug 14 - 07:40 AM

Not a matter of 'sides' in this instance, Jim. I was simply writing about that fatuous song, which you appear for some reason to have taken to your ♥.

Enjoy it, then. I can't even get a good laugh out of its idiocy, but there you go...

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 05:54 AM

"which you appear for some reason to have taken to your ♥."
Not i the slightest - just comparing it to our own, and other brands of idiocy.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 08:29 AM

"Had there been no Iron Dome, perhaps Obama would have refrained from imposing anti-Israeli "sanctions," as he did a few weeks ago when he held up the resupply

of Hellfire missiles for Israel's Apache helicopters. The holdup was unofficially explained as stemming from U.S. concern that Israeli military behavior was resulting in too many Palestinian civilian deaths.

There is an irony here. The Hellfire missiles are precision weapons. Holding up their resupply could have meant that Israel was forced to use more dumb bombs, causing far more collateral damage. In other words, withholding smart weapons would probably result — and may already have done so — in Israeli use of weapons that cause far more civilian casualties.


Which, of course, runs contrary to Israel's policy, whether driven by moral considerations or political expediency. Before fighting resumed this week, the Israeli air force had launched 4,762 strikes, mostly using precision weaponry. These strikes caused several hundred Arab deaths; the remainder were caused in the limited ground assault and by artillery strikes. This means the air force had expended several missiles per death — so either the pilots and munitions were of very poor quality or the Israelis were very, very careful in their targeting, and took great care not to harm civilians.
"

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 08:37 AM

Hardly really a 'comparison' in idiocy though, Jim. The sort of patriotic fervour of Britannia & Hope and Glory is now unfashionable in many circles, and regarded by some as belonging to a former age. But neither contains any denunciations of any of the nation's enemies, but simply expression of pride in one's own country. Surely not in the same universe of ludicrousness as that ditty denouncing the enemy who has, not just slightly but overwhelmingly defeated the songmakers' side three separate times as insignificant "cobwebs" and "mice hiding behind walls". Please don't pretend you can't see the difference Jim: it's not worthy of you.

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Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 08:39 AM

"Strategically speaking, the Iron Dome antimissile shield, precisely because of its effectiveness, has been disastrous for Israel: It has saved Hamas from destruction and it has helped to seriously undermine Israel's image as a civilized state in the eyes of many in the West.

During the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, Iron Dome has efficiently protected Israel from massive damage and casualties. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the other terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip had launched 2,648 rockets against Israel, and that was before a temporary cease-fire was broken Tuesday. Most fell in empty fields. The 600-odd rockets that had accurately targeted towns and villages were almost all successfully intercepted by Iron Dome's Tamir missiles — a nearly 90% success rate, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Iron Dome has 'saved' the Israeli government from launching ... a massive ground assault. ... But Hamas remains intact.
-
The civilian death toll in Israel consisted of only two citizens and a Thai guest worker. Had there been no Iron Dome, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of civilians would have been killed; buildings would have fallen. Civilian Israel would have ground to a halt.

No Israeli government could withstand the public pressure that this would have unleashed: The government would have been forced to quickly launch a massive ground invasion of Gaza, which would have been the only way to bring the rocket barrage to a halt. As it is, the Israeli air campaign and a limited ground invasion have failed to halt the rockets.

lRelated A Gaza solution: demilitarization
OP-ED
A Gaza solution: demilitarization
SEE ALL RELATED        
8

If there had been a massive IDF ground invasion, within two or three months Gaza's towns and villages would have been cleared, house by house, of Hamas fighters. Hamas, and its fellow organizations, would have been destroyed as a military and political force. Israel would have been relieved, for a decade or two, of the need to worry about a southern front; the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas would have been free, or freer, to cut a deal with Israel; and the destruction of Hamas would have sent a clear message about Israeli resolve and capabilities to all its actual or potential enemies (I include Islamic State, fast-approaching Israel's eastern frontier, among the latter).

Iron Dome has "saved" the Israeli government from launching such a massive ground assault. It would, inevitably, have led to the death of hundreds rather than 60-some Israeli soldiers and many more Palestinians, most of them civilians (the Palestinian Health Ministry says 2,061 have been killed, most of them civilians). But Hamas remains intact.

Op-Ed
RELATED: Israel's doctrine of proportionality in Gaza
RELATED: Israel's doctrine of proportionality in Gaza
Dore Gold
And Iron Dome has been disastrous for Israel in yet another way: Without doubt, the pictures of massive destruction in Gaza in the wake of the limited Israeli air and ground response to the Hamas rockets, with its massive civilian toll among Palestinians, has badly harmed Israel's image among liberal, humane Westerners. "Disproportionality" has been on everyone's lips.

If there were footage of shattered buildings in Tel Aviv, and the dead and dying lying in the streets of the coastal cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon, few around the world would condemn Israel for a massive air and ground assault against a palpably murderous Hamas, with the aim of destroying it. Over the months needed to pacify and demilitarize Gaza, no doubt protests would emerge. But the protests would have been less strident than they are today. Israel would weather the international indignation far better; Israel would be better understood.

cComments
@Angeleno90069 Nonsense, only around 20 civilians have died from Hamas rocket fire in the entire history of the Hamas/Israeli conflict. Only 3 died in the 08-09 Cast Lead month long operation and this was before Iron Dome.
BONSAI777
AT 5:18 AM AUGUST 22, 2014
ADD A COMMENTSEE ALL COMMENTS        
21

One can add to these two "objections" to the Iron Dome system a third, minor quibble: It is costly in terms of dollars as well. Each Iron Dome battery costs about $100 million; Israel currently has nine batteries.

And each Iron Dome Tamir missile that Israel fires — and usually two are sent up to intercept each descending rocket — costs at least $50,000.

Each rocket Hamas fires costs $500 to $1,000 to produce. Hamas had 9,000 rockets at its disposal at the start of the recent conflict. Hezbollah reportedly has 100,000 rockets, including long-range Scuds. Do the math. How Israel might cope economically, not to mention militarily, with such a rocket deluge in a future clash is a very real problem.

Iron Dome
The Iron Dome air-defense system fires to intercept a rocket over the city of Ashdod in Israel. (Ilia Yefimovich / Getty Images)
So far, Israel has coped thanks to the generous financial support of the U.S., which has given Israel over the last decade or so more than $1 billion to cover Iron Dome. Indeed, this month President Obama signed off on an additional $225 million for the program.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: bobad
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 08:59 AM

"....Jim: it's not worthy of you."

C'mon Mike, who're you kidding, it's totally worthy of him.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 09:00 AM

Hamas says it was betrayed by Gazans who told IDF where its leaders were.
It has started executing suspects.
18 so far.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 09:04 AM

I was being nice, bobad. It's what I do...

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Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: GUEST,Danny
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 10:21 AM

Most affected are those innocent people who live in the zone gases. Not every Palestinian surely identified with Hamas.



[url "http://footballgamespot.com"]If you like football games come to my site[/url]

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 01:01 PM

Oh, Jimmy boy.

Ready to admit you were wrong about this, too?

"Senior Hamas Official Says Members Of Qassam Brigade Were Responsible For Abducting Israeli Teens
Reuters         | By Noah Browning
Posted: 08/21/2014 8:34 am EDT Updated: 08/21/2014 6:59 pm EDT Print Article
y Noah Browning

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Aug 21 (Reuters) - A top Hamas official said members of his militant group kidnapped three Israeli teenagers whose deaths in June provoked a spiral of violence that led to the war in Gaza, the first acknowledgement of the movement's involvement.

Hamas, which controls Gaza, has up to now refused to confirm or deny Israeli accusations that it masterminded the abduction and killing of the three young men, one of them a joint U.S.-Israeli citizen, in Hebron.

"There was much speculation about this operation, some said it was a conspiracy," Saleh al-Arouri told delegates at the International Union of Islamic Scholars in Istanbul on Wednesday, according to a recording of the meeting posted online by organizers.

"The popular will was exercised throughout our occupied land, and culminated in the heroic operation by the Qassam Brigades in imprisoning the three settlers in Hebron," he said, referring to Hamas's armed wing.

"This was an operation from your brothers in Qassam undertaken to aid their brothers on hunger strike in (Israeli) prisons," he added.

Jewish seminary students Eyal Yifrach, 19, and Gilad Shaer and Naftali Fraenkel, both 16, were abducted while hitchiking in the Israeli occupied West Bank on June 12 and killed.

Israel promptly accused Hamas, which is based in Gaza but has a presence in the West Bank, of masterminding the attack and began a crackdown on the group in which over a thousand Palestinians were arrested.

Tensions already ran deep in the West Bank after weeks of a mass hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, who is in exile in Qatar, denied knowledge of the abduction but praised its perpetrators.

Nearly three weeks after the kidnappings, 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khudair, a Palestinian living in East Jerusalem, was abducted, beaten and burned to death by, prosecutors said, a group of Jewish extremists.

Protests broke out in Abu Khudair's neighborhood and Hamas responded by firing rockets at Israel from Gaza.

That escalated into a full-scale war with Israel in which more than 2,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed, as well as 64 Israeli soldiers and three civilians in Israel.

Two Palestinian suspects Israel has named as the kidnappers of the three seminary students remain at large.

Israel said a third suspect arrested by its security forces admitted under interrogation to organizing the kidnapping with funds from Hamas in Gaza. (Writing by Noah Browning; Editing by Luke Baker and Andrew Heavens)

Via Reuters:

A mortar bomb fired from Gaza killed a four-year-old Israeli child in a border collective farm on Friday, Israeli security sources said.
The boy would be the fourth civilian in Israel to be killed in an attack from the coastal territory since the outbreak of conflict on July 8, and the first Israeli death since an Egyptian-brokered truce broke down earlier this week. More than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, most of them civilians.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 01:27 PM

They denied it so long.
Lying is second nature to them yet our gullible dupes lap it all up without question.
Has anyone caught Israel lying ever?

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 02:58 PM

Jimmy boy will be dancing in the streets…

"JERUSALEM, Aug 22 (Reuters) - A rocket fired from Gaza hit a synagogue in the Israeli city of Ashdod on Friday, wounding three people, police said.

"There is damage at the scene and a number of people were injured by shrapnel," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. The attack came shortly before evening prayers ahead of the Jewish Sabbath. Ashdod is around 30 km (20 miles) from Gaza.

Hamas and other militant groups fired more than two dozen rockets into Israel on Friday, injuring two other people, with no signs of a let up in the six-week war."

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: bobad
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 04:20 PM

"Hard as it may be for some to understand, the Middle East conflict really is as simple as this: the Jews have returned to their land, never to be separated from it again. And not all the mortars and rockets fired from Hamas will change that fact. If anyone appears tired, it is Hamas, which is rapidly running out of options and reduced to mass executions outside of Gaza mosques in order to maintain their rule. Those expecting Israel to lose this battle of attrition are backing the wrong horse."

A War of Attrition Hamas Won't Win

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 04:25 PM

In case you missed this, Jimmy boy:

Via Reuters:

A mortar bomb fired from Gaza killed a four-year-old Israeli child in a border collective farm on Friday, Israeli security sources said.
The boy would be the fourth civilian in Israel to be killed in an attack from the coastal territory since the outbreak of conflict on July 8, and the first Israeli death since an Egyptian-brokered truce broke down earlier this week. More than 2,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, most of them civilians.


So you should be just thrilled with the progress toward proportionality.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: bobad
Date: 22 Aug 14 - 04:59 PM

A four-year-old Israeli boy was killed by a mortar shell fired from the Gaza Strip on Friday afternoon. The boy, named late Friday as Daniel Tregerman, was at home with his parents and siblings at their kibbutz in the Sha'ar Hanegev Region, close to the border with Gaza, when the attack took place.

Israeli security source says fatal shell was fired from UNRWA school in Gaza; PM says Hamas will pay heavy price; over 110 projectiles launched at Israel

Read more: Four-year-old killed in mortar attack named as Daniel Tregerman | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/four-year-old-killed-in-mortar-attack-named-as-daniel-turgerman/#ixzz3B9k8xn1B

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 23 Aug 14 - 04:07 AM

Three school kids, trying to get home, kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by heavily armed men.

Hamas version, " the heroic operation by the Qassam Brigades in imprisoning the three settlers in Hebron"

How can you feel anything but contempt for such people?

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Aug 14 - 04:07 AM

"A mortar bomb fired from Gaza killed a four-year-old Israeli child in a border collective farm on Friday, Israeli security sources said."
Yes - I had missed it and deplore it and any such deaths.
That makes in nearly 20 in twelve years, doesn't it?
Haven't kept up with the death toll in Gaza either - it was 2088, 20 hours ago - the vast majority of them civilians and a large percentage of them women and children

WEDNESDAY

Entire families

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/30/world-disgrace-gaza-un-shelter-school-israel

470 CHILDREN

Haaretz comment
"How many Palestinian civilians is a single militant worth?
As of Thursday, 76.8 percent of the 2,090 fatalities documented by the Gazan human rights organization Mizan have been civilians."
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: bobad
Date: 24 Aug 14 - 12:55 PM

Four Israelis were injured Sunday, two of them seriously, when a large rocket and mortar barrage hit the Erez crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

The victims were Israeli-Arab taxi drivers, who were at the crossing to pick up wounded Gazans and bring them into Israel for medical treatment. The wounded were evacuated to Ashkelon's Barzilai hospital.

An outraged Israeli-Arab Erez crossing official, who spoke to Army Radio from a secured area at the crossing during a subsequent rocket attack, lambasted Hamas for not caring about the well-being of the Palestinians in Gaza.

"This is an organization that cares about the [Palestinian] people? They're shooting at the Palestinian terminal," said the staffer. He stressed that, despite the rocket barrages, the crossing had not closed for emergency medical cases, and that two Gaza females were evacuated "20 minutes ago" via the crossing for life-saving surgery in Israel, and that other taxi-drivers were on hand, "as always," to transport emergency patients.

Read more: Waiting to transport sick, drivers at Gaza crossing come under attack | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/waiting-to-transport-sick-drivers-at-gaza-crossing-come-under-attack/#ixzz3BKU4OgDc

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 04:41 PM

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army has released what it says is a page from a seized Hamas training manual that would appear to support its case that Palestinian militants deliberately use the cover of residential areas for combat operations.

Hamas, which denies it puts civilians at risk by storing and firing weapons from built-up areas, dismissed the document as a forgery intended to justify Israeli attacks that have killed hundreds of children, women and other non-combatants.

Israel has been criticised by the United Nations and others for its tactics during the war, including the shelling of densely populated areas and attacks on several UN schools, which Israel says militants were using for cover.

While many legal experts say Hamas is operating outside of international law by firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli towns and cities from built-up areas in the Gaza Strip, they stress that does not absolve Israel of responsibility to comply with the laws of war itself, notably on endangering civilians.

The Israeli army said the training manual was found in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun at the end of July, when troops were operating inside the enclave. The full manual is 102 pages long, the army said, but it released just one page of it.

That page appears to set out guidelines on how to hide weapons and ammunition in civilian areas, how to transport them into buildings and how to conceal or camouflage explosives.

It is marked at the bottom with "Izz-el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Training and Guidance Branch, Engineering Corps". The al-Qassam Brigades are the military wing of Hamas, the Islamist group that has controlled Gaza since 2007. Unlike other Hamas documents, the page bears no Hamas logo.

"The process of hiding ammunition inside buildings is intended for ambushes in residential areas and to move the campaign from open areas into built up and closed areas," reads the document, written in Arabic.

"Residents of the area should be used to bring in the equipment," it continues, adding: "For jihad fighters, it is easy to operate inside buildings and take advantage of this to avoid (Israeli) spy planes and attack drones."

The guidelines also explain that "the action of hiding weapons inside a building must be carried out secretly and shouldn't have a military character".

An Israeli army spokesman would provide no further details about the document, only to say that the army was "extremely confident it is a Hamas training manual".

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: "This is a fabricated paper and neither Hamas nor Qassam has anything to do with it."

He added: "Israel circulating this is aimed at justifying the mass killings of Palestinian civilians and massacres committed by the occupation army."

Narrative of war

While it may be impossible to verify whether it is a genuine Hamas manual, the Israeli military's decision to release it underscores the efforts both sides in the conflict are making to justify their actions and support their narrative of events in a war that has drawn international condemnation of each party.

Israel launched its offensive on Gaza on July 8 in response to intense Hamas rocket fire from the narrow coastal enclave. In the seven weeks of conflict since, 2,110 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed, while 64 Israel soldiers and 4 civilians in Israel have also died.

In an interview with Yahoo News last week, Khaled Meshaal, the exile political leader of Hamas, denied that the group fired its rockets indiscriminately at Israel, saying it tried to aim the low-tech munitions at military installations or army bases.

There is little evidence that that is the case - nearly all the 2,500-3,000 rockets and mortars Hamas has fired at Israel since the start of the war seem to have been aimed at towns. On Friday, one hit a synagogue and another killed a four-year-old boy in a kibbutz collective farm close to the Gaza border.

Israel has frequently accused Hamas fighters of taking cover among civilians and operating from residential areas, but it has not always been able to present clear evidence of that.

Some journalists in Gaza during the war captured video footage of rockets being fired from built-up areas, including around Shifa, Gaza's main hospital. Hamas has sought to dismiss those as isolated, one-off incidents or attacks carried out by rogue groups not under its control.

For its part, Israel drops leaflets on residential areas before any attack and makes phone calls to residents telling them to leave the area. On Saturday, the Israeli air force warned residents to leave a 13-storey apartment building before it was destroyed in an air strike. Israel said the building was a Hamas base. No one was killed, 17 were wounded.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Hamas-manual-that-backs-using-civilians-as-cover-found-Israel/articleshow/4

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 25 Aug 14 - 04:44 PM

GAZA/ JERUSALEM: Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, killed four more Palestinians suspected of spying for Israel, taking the total number of executions of "collaborators" to 25.

Masked Hamas militants fatally shot the Palestinians in the courtyard of a mosque in the Jabaliya refugee camp on charges of spying for the enemy on Saturday.

Hamas-affiliated Al-Majd website quoted security sources as saying that the four were executed in a "revolutionary" way after "legal measures were completed".


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle-east/Hamas-executes-4-more-suspected-Israeli-spies-in-Gaza/articleshow/40858710.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 26 Aug 14 - 01:12 AM

I am off for a couple of weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 28 Aug 14 - 11:06 AM

"

There's a painful lesson to be learned for liberals, especially liberal Jews, from the hopefully concluded war in Gaza.

Most of my liberal friends desperately want to believe that the fact that Israel is subject to more criticism than almost any country in the world (including some very scary ones), that respected universities consider calls for boycotts, that student government slates (at UCLA) run and win on pledges not to accept travel from the Anti-Defamation League, that all of this and more has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that it is a Jewish state, much less with anti-Semitism. No, it's not about holding Jews to a different standard; it's Israel.

Newsflash: Not so in this war.

Israel is not the "occupier" of Gaza. Israel did not build tunnels into Gaza.

Show me another country that would be castigated, as Israel has been, even in the American media, for protecting its citizens against terrorists who had secretly figured out how to infiltrate their towns and villages, who were sending rockets aimed at major population centers without even a pretense of targeting the military.

You know what the world would say if another country were the one taking on terrorists who have vowed to destroy us, as well. We would say thanks. We would say well done. We would be very glad that they were willing to send their soldiers into harm's way, that they were adept enough to target militants. Would the international media be castigating the country that first warned of impending attacks and then hit houses where the dead were pulled out carrying rifles to the cheers of the crowd? They would not.

How is it that Israel became the villain in a war it did not start, that was necessitated by self-defense, that cost needless lives because Hamas does not value the lives of its own people either?

One of my friends sent me an email from an Israeli doctor whose team had saved the life of a Palestinian woman who had been burned by her own family (likely for straying beyond the proper limits for women). She returned to Gaza and was encouraged to return to Israel for outpatient follow-up. She was stopped at the border, suicide bombs strapped to her body, on her way to her follow-up appointment in Israel. She planned to kill herself and those who had saved her life. Her family told her they would forgive her if she did.

This is why Israelis were overwhelmingly in support of this war. It is because it was a war of self-defense, part of the struggle for survival that we would like to believe is limited to the countries in the Middle East, but is built on hatred and hypocrisy that cannot so easily be cabined.

It is good that there is a ceasefire, good that families on both sides can sleep a little better and breathe a little easier, good that fewer lives may be lost in the short run. But we liberals cannot kid ourselves.

My mother saw anti-Semitism behind every corner and always urged me not to offend. I was determined to push back against those limits — when I was growing up, limits on who could live where and go to school where and even go fishing off of which dock — just like I was determined to push back on the limits imposed on women. No one's victim. Not me. We Jewish Americans have done very, very well and have much to be grateful for.

But blindness is more dangerous than paranoia.

It wasn't — it isn't — just about Israel."

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 04:21 AM

Juicie Brucie
You seem to have taken over little Booboo's role of putting up up huge, unlinked cut-'n-pastes in order to prove "Israel is good - all who oppose are Anti-Semite and bad"
Your first offering comes from extremist FrontPage News, whose slogan is "Inside every liberal is an extremist screaming to get out" and who believes that Ronald Reagan was the bees knees.
Your second is from 'The American Thinker' - a conservative American Magazine - the author, Michael Curtis, is a writer dedicated to proving that all criticism of Israel is Antisemitic
What's your point?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 07:22 AM

Jimmy,

YOU are attacking the source, rather than telling us what if anything is incorrect. BillD would tell you that this is an "ad hominem" attack, and does NOT advance your case.

Perhaps yu would care to argue FACTS: Tell us why YOU think the presented statements do not reflect reality, if you are capable of reasonable statements.

Come on, you can do it. Tell us why it is better to kill your own civilians than to stop trying to kill other countries civilians.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 08:02 AM

"a gaggle of apologists for terrorists need a naive thick count "

I think that you, Jimmy boy, and GregF fill the role quite well.


Care to discuss the FACTS ? I note Hamas has declared victory- because they met their goal of killing enough Palestinian civilians to make Israel look bad to some "useful idiots", I presume.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: bobad
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 09:32 AM

Bruce, you should have figured out by now that they attack the source or the poster because they cannot mount a cogent argument against the facts presented. It has become boring...........yawn!

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 10:12 AM

Juicy
Presented texts are invariably selected to suit a pre-formed agenda
Both of your (significantly) unlinked cut-'n-pastes are largely merely opinions riddled with such agendas.
They both come from the extremist conservative right, which has been responsible for making Israel the terrorist state it has become - given your own agenda, you were wise not to link them.
You want to present t continue to present the opinions of such people - feel free
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 10:38 AM

Well, since you continue to present the straight Hamas , certified terrorist view, I suppose you should know...

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 11:01 AM

"Well, since you continue to present the straight Hamas"
Don't suppose you'd care to back this up with a single shred of evidence - no? - thought not.
Still - you can'tgetr round the fact that it was the extreme right that filled the Auschwitz ovens - bet your ancestors are very proud of you!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 11:07 AM

Jimmy boy,

EVERY post that you have made has presented the HAMAS viewpoint, or the UN report based on the HAMAS numbers, or the BBC report based on the UN report of the HAMAS numbers.

Are you REALLY so dumb as to think that people do not look at your numbers and CHECK to see who is making those claims???

YOU have been presenting the words of those who place their own civilian in peril to make political points with idiots such as yourself.


YOU have their blood on your hands, NOT the Israelis or those of us telling you what you do not want to accept.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 11:40 AM

Juicy Brucie
I have never at any time quoted Hamas as evidence, neither has anybody else on this forum
The quote we have all made are usually from the international press or from human rights groups - virtually all of them
I defy you to produce one single quote I have ever made from Hamas - one single one

The fact that you regard all criticism of Israel as either supporting Hamas or Antisemitic is entirely of your own twisted logic - ca't help remembering the hole you got yourself into by claiming Israel sat down at the conference table with terrorists/Palestinians.
You on the other hand, choose your quotes (carefully not linking them) from opinions of extremist right wing Zionists - says all that needs to be saidf on the subject of validity of quotes as far as I'm concerned.
Your running mate, little Booboo, goes even further by choosing his from sites like 'White Supremist' and 'Muslim Watch' - the gutternet.
You continue supporting the ideology that wiped out six million of your people - that appears to be the extent of concern for the Jewish people
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 11:44 AM

So, Jimmy the "useful idiot", YOU have NEVER quoted Hamas?

What about all those claims that "xxxx Palestinians have been killed, most of them civilians and children"?

THOSE FIGURES ARE FROM HAMAS.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 11:50 AM

EVERY time you claim that the number of Palestinian civilians killed BY ISRAEL is the number Hamas claims YOU are supporting killing Palestinian civilians.

NOT one of them is EVER killed by Hamas rockets, or executed by Hamas, or killed for political purposes by Hamas- EVERY body in Gaza is blamed by YOU AND HAMAS on the Israelis.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 01:13 PM

"THOSE FIGURES ARE FROM HAMAS."
Those figure are either from the press or from human rights observers
The only other ones available are from Israel - totally untrustworthy.
Failing either of those - there are no casualty figures and no other information.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 01:22 PM

Then YOU have chosen to accept the HAMAS figures, and denied the Israeli ones, although Hamas has a long PROVEN history of making up figures for political purposes, which Israel has not been shown to do.

You are an anti-Semitic bigot.

The blood remains on your hands. Every dead Palestinian child is your responsibility, and you have earned the blame by your own posts.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: Greg F.
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 02:53 PM

Can some helpful person re-label this thread to " Bearded Bruce Vociferous Verbal Vomit"?

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: beardedbruce
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 03:13 PM

Crawl back under your rock, Greggie.

Subject: RE: BS: Small hope for Israel/Palestine
From: bobad
Date: 29 Aug 14 - 05:45 PM

PA president says conflict with Israel that left thousands dead and much of Gaza destroyed was avoidable.

And guess who he is blaming?

Abbas blames Hamas for prolonged battle with Israel