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Sick sick world what is wrong with people

Propaganda everywhere claiming this that and the other. I can't believe that there's millions of people going without food or water who are literally starving to death and picking up diseases. Unbelievable that no aid is allowed to go in there and it doesn't appear there's much pressure being put on by western governments to get aid through either.
 
braineclipse said:
You follow the BBC much closer than I do.

I don't know what actually happened. I think condemnations are in order regardless of who's responsible.

The way you see it are Israel to be trusted when they present their denial. Do we then know that it wasn't them?

If yes I think we have a point of different views here.

If yes I think that goes to highlight the difficulty of reporting this during the fog of war. And I don't see conclusion of double standards as warranted.
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There are a number of other sources all pointing towards the rocket(s) coming from Gaza too, not just Israel.

I'm more concerned that they accepted the Hamas explanation of events but not the Israeli one.
 
Trixster said:
I'll think you will find that the context around the initial reply was about the legitimacy of marking a civilian infrastructure as a viable target, not whether or not one was a soldier or a nut-job.

Israel may have no choice but to wipe out Hamas, but they DO have a choice in how they go about it. Indiscriminately blowing up civilian infrastructure (if proven/true) with no regard for the innocents isn't they way to do things and it makes them no better than the terrorists.
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No they don't. If Hamas uses civilian infrastructure to hide behind, then Israel has no choice but to target that infrastructure.
 
scaramanga said:
No they don't. If Hamas uses civilian infrastructure to hide behind, then Israel has no choice but to target that infrastructure.
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Targeting and destroying a hospital is a war crime, no exceptions, no excuses. The same applies to both sides.

To be fair we don’t know that is what happened. But if it did that is totally illegal, immoral and unacceptable.
 
dawaxman said:
You've heard radical Muslims use the phrase infidels before right?
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I believe so, like radical Christians of old using the term heathen so they could bypass the commandments about not murdering and treating your neighbor kindly because they thought someone was a witch so it was GHod's work to burn them. Religion can be a beautiful and positive thing but when it's interpreted in a way that encourages brutality it's not so great . I'm not outrightly blaming this conflict and others on people's faith because it would obviously be happening for another reason, not to hark on about it as I'm openly not a master of theology or the history / context behind this particular conflict, I'm just hugely disappointed in humans and the lack of humanity displayed from the individuals subjecting others to unimaginable suffering.

scaramanga said:
Yes, it could.

You know how to stop that? Stop hiding behind civilians, dress like a military and house your military in separate military buildings away from civilians.
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You know in this instance that would effectively be suicide from the perspective of Hamas (which I'm not endorsing nor justifying) as they are seemingly outnumbered in terms of military might. I'm wary that even this will be taken as me supporting what they're doing, to be clear I'm just stating that subterfuge/ espionage/ guerrilla warfare will always be used when you have a conflict with a large difference in military power. In any war / conflict I'd rather just the respective leaders just fought it out themselves and do away with the whole war thing but it's apparently quite good business, what's a bit of death when you've got shareholders to keep happy....
 
spurspinter1 said:
I believe so, like radical Christians of old using the term heathen so they could bypass the commandments about not murdering and treating your neighbor kindly because they thought someone was a witch so it was GHod's work to burn them. Religion can be a beautiful and positive thing but when it's interpreted in a way that encourages brutality it's not so great . I'm not outrightly blaming this conflict and others on people's faith because it would obviously be happening for another reason, not to hark on about it as I'm openly not a master of theology or the history / context behind this particular conflict, I'm just hugely disappointed in humans and the lack of humanity displayed from the individuals subjecting others to unimaginable suffering.



You know in this instance that would effectively be suicide from the perspective of Hamas (which I'm not endorsing nor justifying) as they are seemingly outnumbered in terms of military might. I'm wary that even this will be taken as me supporting what they're doing, to be clear I'm just stating that subterfuge/ espionage/ guerrilla warfare will always be used when you have a conflict with a large difference in military power. In any war / conflict I'd rather just the respective leaders just fought it out themselves and do away with the whole war thing but it's apparently quite good business, what's a bit of death when you've got shareholders to keep happy....
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They could surrender... no more Palestinians would die

And they're quite keen on suicide generally - search 'suicide bombers' on Google. They're totally up for killing themselves and taking civilians (from either side) with them
 
scaramanga said:
No they don't. If Hamas uses civilian infrastructure to hide behind, then Israel has no choice but to target that infrastructure.
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The targeting is fine. It's the execution that's the choice.
This is the problem Israel faces. Bombing and rockets are a choice to not minimise civilian casualties.
Like it or loathe it, Israel is in a war with an enemy whose tactics are to hide behind civilians. Israel made the choice to declare war on Hamas. So their tactics must be to attack Hamas, nothing else.

That pretty much takes bombing off the table and leaves ground tactics or covert tactics (whatever the Israeli equivalent of the Seas is), IF you want minimise civilian casualties.
 
monkeybarry said:
The targeting is fine. It's the execution that's the choice.
This is the problem Israel faces. Bombing and rockets are a choice to not minimise civilian casualties.
Like it or loathe it, Israel is in a war with an enemy whose tactics are to hide behind civilians. Israel made the choice to declare war on Hamas. So their tactics must be to attack Hamas, nothing else.

That pretty much takes bombing off the table and leaves ground tactics or covert tactics (whatever the Israeli equivalent of the Seas is), IF you want minimise civilian casualties.
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that’s kinda like saying Ukraine made a choice to declare war on Russia

Israel have a terrorist state next door, they have the right to defend themselves, just as Ukraine do

some would say a moral obligation to do so as well
 
Baleforce said:
that’s kinda like saying Ukraine made a choice to declare war on Russia

Israel have a terrorist state next door, they have the right to defend themselves, just as Ukraine do

some would say a moral obligation to do so as well
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No it's not. It's like saying stop and make different choices (or don't, but don't pretend otherwise) to Ukraine if Ukraine started bombing Russian cities with huge amounts of ordinance and in the knowledge it will kill a huge amount of civilians whilst also killing some combatants.

Ultimately the question has to be, "is the civilian: combatant casualty ratio acceptable to us". Israels actions show it is. International law says it unlikely to be.
Israels position is fine - it's a sovereign state and can act how it wishes. What it can't do is act like that and also claim to be acting lawfully and, I'd argue, justly. Justly, of course, brings us back to the acceptable casualty ratio above. So does the term "defence".
 
Crab.C.Nesbitt said:
Targeting and destroying a hospital is a war crime, no exceptions, no excuses. The same applies to both sides.

To be fair we don’t know that is what happened. But if it did that is totally illegal, immoral and unacceptable.
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Deliberately targeting a hospital full of people is. Destroying a military base dressed as a hospital isn't. Evacuating a hospital then destroying the military that are left isn't. Even accidentally destroying a hospital full of people isn't.

So you have to ask what you think the odds are of Israel deliberately targeting a hospital, knowing it was full of people and not making any attempts to evacuate it first (something they've done everywhere else). Seems fairly unlikely.
 
spurspinter1 said:
You know in this instance that would effectively be suicide from the perspective of Hamas (which I'm not endorsing nor justifying) as they are seemingly outnumbered in terms of military might. I'm wary that even this will be taken as me supporting what they're doing, to be clear I'm just stating that subterfuge/ espionage/ guerrilla warfare will always be used when you have a conflict with a large difference in military power. In any war / conflict I'd rather just the respective leaders just fought it out themselves and do away with the whole war thing but it's apparently quite good business, what's a bit of death when you've got shareholders to keep happy....
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Of course. That's why countries with small armies tend not to pick fights with those that have large ones.

Regardless of how effective the tactic is, that's what they should be doing. Any civilian suffering past that is on them.
 
monkeybarry said:
The targeting is fine. It's the execution that's the choice.
This is the problem Israel faces. Bombing and rockets are a choice to not minimise civilian casualties.
Like it or loathe it, Israel is in a war with an enemy whose tactics are to hide behind civilians. Israel made the choice to declare war on Hamas. So their tactics must be to attack Hamas, nothing else.

That pretty much takes bombing off the table and leaves ground tactics or covert tactics (whatever the Israeli equivalent of the Seas is), IF you want minimise civilian casualties.
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A ground war in that environment is seriously unlikely to win - even with a large numerical advantage.

Best thing to do is what they're doing now. Evacuate the area of civilians, flatten it, use ground forces to clear what's left and flood/concrete all the tunnels, then allow the civilians back in.
 
One thing that is bothering me is that I keep seeing the 'might of Israel' vs 'tiny, defenceless Palestine'

Making Palestine the Ukraine in their analogies etc

Facts are that:

1. hamas and hezbollah are hugely well funded
2. Israel is surrounded from all sides by enemies
3. None of Israel's enemies are prepared to help the innocent people of Palestine (because it helps their cause if Israel purposely or inadvertently kills any/all of them) Jordan and Egypt literally said yesterday that taking refugees from Palestine was off the table.... poorly timed given yesterday's events wouldn't you say?

Israel has got a reputation which is unfair

They've got to fight their enemies from all sides AND the PR battle at the same time

I've seen people talking about gaza like they know it intimately saying that there is no food, electricity, water and all buildings are rubble now thanks to thousands of bombs from Israel

Is this all 100% true??

How can gaza be so small and yet at the same time can absorb thousands of bombs and have relatively few deaths?

Why are Egypt preventing humanitarian aid getting across to the people of gaza?

So many questions that too many people are content to not have answers to
 
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