Israel actually takes extensive precautions to limit casualties — BitconnectCarlos

Factored in..

Of the 219 people who have been killed in Gaza, at least 63 are children, according to its health ministry. Of the 10 people killed in Israel, two children are among the dead, the country's medical service says.

Killing children receiving trauma treatment? Caused by Israeli policy and military action? Factored in..

If I agree with you in the precision of the IDF, I must conclude these actions were intentional.

Truly, a more ethically fought war has never been waged. IDF precision and harm minimisation at its best:

In Gaza, an air strike that struck close to the Remal medical clinic, school and orphanage has caused further strain on health facilities in the area.

Apologists of Israeli actions during this current conflict and the decade-old occupation rarely pass the veil of ignorance when forming arguments.

The responsible way to do this is to actively question your own knowledge. When doing so, the facts presented about the conflict, as it is today, becomes clear. Anything else is bias and denial.

hen doing so, the facts presented about the conflict, as it is today, becomes clear. — Christoffer

:up:

History is the refuge of the coward.

On the contrary. You might not want to face it, but it’s extremely pertinent. — Xtrix

You fail to understand the difference between the intentional murder of innocents, say, putting a knife through a stranger's back because of his ethnicity on one hand, and the targeting of military targets and infrastructure. Until you understand this difference it's all gonna be the same to you.

Like media and residential buildings. Israel says it, so it must be true. — Xtrix

The precautions and the steps taken before bombing are all very well documented.

You’re simply deluded. — Xtrix

There maybe there were some; I don't follow every strike and if a war crime did occur we can prosecute those in charge. Every indiscriminate missile that Hamas fires into a residential area for no other purpose than to kill random Jews living in their homes is a war crime. Where are the telephone calls that Hamas makes? How about leaflets?

But both were created by Israel and the US policy, respectively. — Xtrix

Hamas definitely wasn't created by Israel, the organization is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Was the organization a reaction to Israel? Yes, but reactions aren't causes. Hitler may have came to power as a reaction against the Allied forces and the treaty of Versailles, but those things didn't cause Hitler.

I’m talking about the present. In the PRESENT, Palestinians in Gaza are living in a hellhole. It just so happens they’ve also been living that way for decades, thanks to Israel. — Xtrix

Again wrong, and you're again ignorant of the reality on the ground. Israel is not the one embezzling funds intended for the Palestinian people or spending them on intricate underground tunnels. To say that this is entirely an Israeli problem simplifies to the conflict to child-like complexity and is not reflective of reality.

For me it comes down to the fact that Israel holds all the cards yet makes no effort to deal fairly with the Palestinians. They seem intent on keeping the conflict alive in order that they can continue to grab land and kill Palestinians. I'm not saying that this is the plan, but that this is what appears to be the plan. If it is not the plan then Israel's PR machine needs overhauling.

If I were Palestinian I would be buying rockets. It would seem to be the only way forward,.So I blame Israel for the Palestinian rockets. I have nothing but disgust for Israel and will risk saying it,

However, it's a complex situation and I can appreciate other views are possible.

I sometimes wonder whether behind the scenes Israel and the US are run by the same people. They certainly seem to share the same broken moral compass. , .

Of the 219 people who have been killed in Gaza, at least 63 are children, according to its health ministry. Of the 10 people killed in Israel, two children are among the dead, the country's medical service says.

A few things to consider that aren't highly publicized:

-Hamas kills its own civilians when its own rockets misfire or someone aims poorly. I know of at least 8 Palestinian children killed this way. In a sample of 850 Hamas rocket launches, 200 ended up over Gaza so now that Hamas has launched over 3000 rockets we're looking at likely over 700 of Hamas' own missiles dropping over Gaza. These will be reported as Israel, of course.

-Hamas has been known to force its own people to stay in buildings and other places that are going to be bombed.

-Hamas will intentionally build underground tunnels near schools, hospitals, and office buildings so that when Israel strikes it will be impossible not to inflict collateral damage. Hamas will also directly fire weapons from these places which is a war crime. Storing weapons in schools and hospitals also violates the laws of war.

-Hamas in its casualty reports does not distinguish between militants and civilians, so of the 140 or so adults dead they could all be militants but Hamas would not reveal those details.

I'd be interested to know how Israel's response would compare to the US and UK on something like this. If it can be demonstrated that Israel's response is considerably worse or out of line then I would reconsider my position. I'm always open for a discussion about which armaments/weaponry is being used, but what's not open for discussion is whether Israel can retaliate - which, like any other country, it has the right to when under attack. Without the iron dome Israel would likely have 10x its current casualties.

I deny war crimes. — BitconnectCarlos

Cunts "deny war crimes".

You're a waste of time, 180. You exist for no other reason than to foment conflict and pit brother against brother. That's your ideology - constant war.

You're a waste of time, 180. — BitconnectCarlos

Well, it's my time to waste, BC, while on the shitter. Goebbels would've loved the way you lick jackboots.

The Nazis loved to describe themselves as victims and frame reality as an intractable struggle between groups you would fit right in.

The Nazis loved to describe themselves as victims and frame reality as an intractable struggle between groups you would fit right in. — BitconnectCarlos

Huh, so Israel.

Huh, so Israel. — StreetlightX

I strongly reject all framings like this, and I'm aware that there are Israelis - like there are Arabs - who take this framing of the conflict. It's not right to just blame one side, you'll see this framing everywhere from people of all nationalities.

I strongly reject all framings like this — BitconnectCarlos

He says right after he frames someone as exactly this.

Fuck you're a moron.

What are you talking about? I said 180 frames reality like this and he doesn't even try to hide it.

Wow, you're actually this slow.

You're not furthering the conversation and I'm not going to respond until you lay out, clearly, exactly what you're saying.

Explaining the walking, talking joke that you are would ruin it, so I'm gonna keep letting you going.

You can play your little "gotcha" games with me that no one else understands, I don't care, but maybe keep in mind that there's another poster here who categorically refuses to condemn Hamas for the repression and murder of LGBTQ Palestinians, or for anything for that matter.

So when I accuse someone of viewing the world in black-and-white terms it's because I know this person's posting history and it's not without just cause.

Stop picking on idiots.

He makes it so easy.

The fucker makes it easier every day for me to get myself banned. WTF.

What is so confusing? All I was saying was that we should not frame the conflict like X. Some posters do frame things as X. I do not. I don't know what about this is so confusing for you, but by all means jump into bed with those who condone the genocide of LGBTQ in Palestine.

If it can be demonstrated that Israel's response is considerably worse or out of line then I would reconsider my position. — BitconnectCarlos

I doubt you would.

One impartial observing side have been the blue berets in the Middle East, especially in Lebanon. I know a few reservists here who have made a stint in Lebanon and seen how the Israelis operate. And usually they are quite cynical about both sides. Some of them have made memoirs that accurately depicted the low intensity conflict before Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. Nobody questions the abilities of the Israeli army. But many notice the the heavy handedness how they approach the conflict. So how does the Israeli army operate?

A small example. One way to counter the threat of ambushes is to simply shoot while driving through places which are suitable for ambushes. So when there is an orchard directly next to the road and you don't have good visibility, then just fire blindly to the orchard with the mounted machine gun to pin down anybody that is there. Israeli patrols used this approach in Lebanon. If then a small 5-year old girl who just happens to be in her family's own orchard is killed by this random shooting, just announce it that a "Palestinian terrorist" was killed that day.

In West Bank and Gaza Israeli military has taken a more "humane" approach: just simply cut down every orchard or forest next to the road that could make an ambush spot. Solution to the problem.

You can compare to other armed forces that operate in an low-intensity environment. I think the British Armed Forces in Northern Ireland are the best example of taking another strategy. Even today Police Stations in Northern Ireland are like miniature military fortresses.

Since 1960 the British military has killed 307 people in Northern Ireland of whom half have been Provisional IRA terrorist. Yet it has lost over 700 soldiers in the conflict. Hence in fact the Provisional IRA has killed far more British soldiers and policemen than they have suffered losses. The perpetrators of the bloodiest attack against British forces were caught immediately, but released because there wasn't enough evidence to convict them. Once released, the other one of these was killed while making another bomb, but the other lived as a free man. That you do have PIRA members still living in the UK tells something about how the UK handled the conflict with it's Good Friday agreement etc.

There you can note the difference how a democratic country fights terrorism: with the laws implemented and treating the terrorists as other criminals. Above all, trying to treat the issue as a police matter.

Of course Israel can say that it follows it's own laws. And here's the basic problem: the Apartheid system starts from it's citizens being in different categories.

If it can be demonstrated that Israel's response is considerably worse or out of line then I would reconsider my position — BitconnectCarlos

What metrics would you accept for the comparison?

Here are mine, Israel's policy towards Palestine is colonial expansion, an unjust war, not fought in self defence, because:

(1) Colonial expansion: Israel is expanding constantly through military means. No one gets to take something by force then "defend themselves" from the victim trying to take it back.
(2) Palestine is not a credible military threat to Israel. Israel has more ground forces, an airforce, nuclear weapons, spies and military intelligence and soft power internationally. Hamas and other groups are largely untrained volunteers using old weaponry, have no airforce, and little soft power internationally. Palestine is not a threat to the nationhood of Israel.
(3) Areas of Palestine which were conquered by Israel have two tiered access to roads, enforced by military checkpoints and patrols. This affects al those people who do not flee. The military expansion of Israel has caused an ongoing diaspora.

The adherents among those refugees of a right to return to their historic homeland is precisely the logic of Zionism - return to the ancestral home and build it anew. It can't be denied from one and applied to the other.

So - a state engaged in an asymmetrical conflict, conquering territories, as referenced before killing children and bombing hospitals, making the population that doesn't flee live in squalor, air striking media outlets...

Again, were it another country, it would've been put in Dubya's Axis of Evil.

“Israel actually takes extensive precautions to limit casualties”

— BitconnectCarlos

We know for sure they don’t. Israel has all the contact information of all the residents in Gazas, they can make them evacuate before bombing them if they really wanted to. They are killing families purposefully.

“An investigation by the human rights group B’Tselem that focused on some 70 of the families who were eradicated in 2014, provided three explanations for the numerous nuclear and extended families that were killed, all at once, in one Israeli bombing on the home of each such family. One explanation was that the Israeli army didn’t provide advance warning to the homeowners or to their tenants; or that the warning didn’t reach the correct address, at all or on time.

In any case, what stands out is the difference between the fate of the buildings that were bombed with their residents inside, and the “towers” – the high-rise buildings that were shelled as of the second day of this latest conflict, during the daytime or early evening.

Reportedly, the owners or the concierge in the towers got prior warning of an hour at most that they must evacuate, usually via phone call from the army or Shin Bet security service, then “warning missiles” fired by drones. These owners/concierges were supposed to warn the other residents in the short time remaining.

Not only highrises were involved. On Thursday evening Omar Shurabji’s home west of Khan Yunis was shelled. A crater formed in the road and one room in the two־story building was destroyed. Two families, with seven people altogether, live in that building.

About 20 minutes before the explosion, the army called Khaled Shurabji and told him to tell his uncle Omar to leave the house, per a report by the Palestinian center for human rights. It is not known whether Omar was there, but the residents of the house all hastened to get out, so there were no casualties.

This very fact that the Israeli army and Shin Bet trouble to call and order the evacuation of the homes shows that the Israeli authorities have current phone numbers for people in each structure slated for destruction. They have the phone numbers for relatives of the people suspected or known to be activists for Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

The Palestinian population registry, including that of Gaza, is in the hands of the Israeli Interior Ministry. It includes details such as names, ages, relatives and addresses.

As the Oslo Accords require, the Palestinian interior ministry, through the civil affairs ministry, transfers current information regularly to the Israeli side, especially concerning births and newborns: The registry data must receive Israeli approval, because without that, Palestinians cannot receive an identity card when the time comes, or in the case of minors – they can’t travel alone or with their parents through border crossings controlled by Israel.

It is clear, then, that the army knows the number and names of children, women and elderly who live in every residential building it bombs for any reason.”

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/gaza-israel-wiping-entire-palestinian-families-hamas-1.9820005?fbclid=IwAR2dJmlDOlEId4PX8oLq51nyguj_it9lTEm3XFGR2Cl4SRcLwSgJmlwpWW0

We know for sure they don’t. Israel has all the contact information of all the residents in Gazas, they can make them evacuate before bombing them if they really wanted to. — Saphsin

Yes, like the notification they gave to Aljazeera's headquarters in Gaza city before airstriking it!

You fail to understand the difference between the intentional murder of innocents, say, putting a knife through a stranger's back because of his ethnicity on one hand, and the targeting of military targets and infrastructure. Until you understand this difference it's all gonna be the same to you. — BitconnectCarlos

The United States often says the exact same thing. Like the Al Shifa bombing.

When our team does it, it’s not intentional— because we’re the god guys. When they do it, it’s intentional and they’re evil.

This is what you continually fail to see. You swallow the pretext wholesale. If we look at the real world, and not “intentions,” the death counts tell a slightly different story than the rationalizations we tell ourselves.

If you want to believe it, you’re welcome to.

The precautions and the steps taken before bombing are all very well documented. — BitconnectCarlos

As are the war crimes. You selectively choose one and ignore the other.

I guess because it’s a more “civil” kind of war crime, and a more well-intentioned terrorism, we’ll let it slide. We’re the good guys, after all, and everything we do is defensive.

The Nazi archives are filled with similar sentiments.

Yes, but reactions aren't causes. Hitler may have came to power as a reaction against the Allied forces and the treaty of Versailles, but those things didn't cause Hitler. — BitconnectCarlos

Yes, they did. They’re factors that led to Hitler. The US bombing of Iraq led to ISIS. Israel’s treatment of Gaza led to Hamas.

You wouldn’t have Hamas without Israeli-imposed conditions. You want to continually translate this as some direct causal link, taking it literally as “Israel created Hamas” or whatever, but you know very well what’s meant. Argue semantics somewhere else.

Hamas is a reaction? Yes. Reactions aren’t causes— right, they’re effects. Effects from what exactly? Israeli treatment. So if Israel is serious about preventing further war, they should perhaps change their policies and stop making Gaza an unlivable shithole.

Front page of Ny Times today, and this only scratches the surface:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/22/us/israel-gaza-conflict.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

This is cool:

"Joint List Chairman Ayman Odeh added, “From doctors to taxi drivers and high-tech workers, everyone joined the general strike as an act of unity that’s a source of pride for Arab citizens. Weeks of the Netanyahu government’s provocative and violent policy of repression have failed and will not succeed in repressing our struggle or diverting us from our path – an organized and just civil struggle against the occupation, the blockade, the attack on Gaza and for peace and equality.”

..In Beit Shemesh, which is experiencing a construction boom, all the cranes were silent on Tuesday. One crane operator said that many operators are Arabs who were striking, and added, “If we would all fight that way for workers’ rights maybe we would achieve something.” The Israel Builders Association said Palestinian workers had observed the strike, with only 150 of the 65,000 Palestinian construction workers coming to work in Israel. This paralyzed building sites, causing losses estimated at 130 million shekels (nearly $40 million). But even before the strike, since the beginning of the operation in Gaza, only 6,000 to 8,000 Palestinians were coming to work every day. According to Yehuda Katav, vice president of the builder’s association, construction has slowed to a snail’s pace. “We cannot build without them,” he said.

Users of public transportation also felt the strike; the Transportation Ministry said 910 drivers, some 10 percent of all bus drivers, didn’t show up for work Tuesday. Egged spokesman Ron Ratner said nearly 300 journeys had to be canceled, while the Kavim bus company warned riders to expect disruptions and avoid unnecessary trips that day."

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-general-strike-highlights-israel-s-dependency-on-palestinian-workers-1.9824446

And usually they are quite cynical about both sides. — ssu

I'm gonna have to keep it brief today because I have been inundated with responses and I just can't get to everything. In any case, I'm fine with this general position. I certainly agree that Israel should take steps to make its operational procedures more humanitarian, but I refuse a moral equivalence between the standard operating procedures of the IDF and those of Hamas and other terrorist groups.

The Lebanon example could maybe make sense if IDF soldiers had been attacked from there before and had the place was walled off or restricted as a no-go area. Otherwise the practice seems wrong to me.

You can compare to other armed forces that operate in an low-intensity environment. I think the British Armed Forces in Northern Ireland are the best example of taking another strategy. Even today Police Stations in Northern Ireland are like miniature military fortresses. — ssu

I don't know if these conflicts are comparable. I haven't studied the IRA conflict in detail, but have IRA members ever ran through London stabbing other people indiscriminately until they were eventually shot? Have they ever disguised bombs as balloons and flown them towards Elementary schools? Do hundreds of them throw loads of rocks at random British civilians for no reason other than that they are British? How about random drive-by shootings on civilians? How about recruiting and brainwashing Irish children to blow themselves up at a restaurant? Now imagine growing up your entire life hearing about these things committed against your ethnic group. Every year it was something different. Who would have thought a few dozen stabbing sprees would follow suicide bombings in bars?!

but have IRA members ever ran through London stabbing other people indiscriminately until they were eventually shot? Have they ever disguised bombs as balloons and flown them towards Elementary schools? Do they throw loads of rocks at random British civilians for no reason other than that they are British? — BitconnectCarlos

No — we all agree that Israel’s terrorism and war crimes are of a far higher quality. Their way of killing children is much more humane.