WORLD: Why Should I Care About the Israeli-Hamas Conflict?

reply to post by The_Modulus


In all modern militaries, there is this thing called "friendly fire." Another term is "blue on blue."

These are unintentional events that nonetheless occur.

If you drop enough ordinance, or fire enough artillery shells, you're going to have a stray now and then.

*Snip*

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[edit on 1/18/2009 by semperfortis]

reply to post by dooper


And what about the BILLIONS that have been spent over DECADES to bring new weapons, communication, radar, surveillance etc to the battlefield?

Doesn't do much good if you still kill the wrong people.

reply to post by nerbot

I don't care how much a weapon system costs, there will be misfires on occasion.

There are always things that go wrong.

There are always mistakes made. No matter the training, the practice, the technology, the effectiveness.

*Snip*

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[edit on 1/18/2009 by semperfortis]

reply to post by dooper


OK..forget the innocent, forget where your taxes go...move on.

reply to post by nerbot


That is the coolest wallpaper? that I've ever seen!

Bad to the bone!

reply to post by dooper


You should probably watch some news footage of some of the airstrike which the Israeli military has releases, footage taken from the cockpit gun cameras. Those airstrikes are pinpoint accurate. They go exactly where they are aimed.

You still have not addressed the point I have made throughout this thread as to the significance of this conflict.

Originally posted by dooper
reply to post by nerbot

 

That is the coolest wallpaper? that I've ever seen!

Bad to the bone!

It's called a "profile background" and don't change the subject!

reply to post by The_Modulus

I thought we'd covered this so many times on so many threads, but I'll give you my take.

When you see a source of fire, then that source is fair game. I don't care if it's loaded with nuns and kids, there is no way to know who is inside.

But if you know that this is a source of rockets or AA fire, then it instantly becomes a legitimate target.

I once aimed, and fired at a six-point buck at about 140 yards. Instead, I shot a doe. Since my groups with that rifle was 1.3" at 100 meters, I knew it wasn't the rifle, and it wasn't me.

It was the doe. She wandered right into the line of fire.

Israeli, American, British, German, or any other pilots are not equipped with X-ray vision. A lot is happening at once. You do the best you can.

If the Israelis intentionally wanted to end this, they'd start bombing at one end, slowly work it through towards the other end of Gaza.

The fact that they are not doing this indicates that civilians are not intentionally targeted.

To make matters worse, a lot of these "civilians" are nothing more than non-uniformed combatants. In such a manner, Hamas can say a civilian, instead of one of their force was killed.

You want to blame someone, go ahead. You've made up your mind that Israel is wrong.

You really don't give a damn about who is responsible for this, or you are unwilling to accept or understand what is really happening.

So maybe we should all play dumb.

reply to post by ClintK


I think it could help people answer your question if you said which country you are in.

Some are the reasons are

1. Israel has nukes and is the only country in the middle east with them.

2. To Muslims, their religion comes first and their country second.
Iran is not an Arab country, they don't even get on that well with Arabs, but they are united as Muslims. They put their differences aside when a fellow Muslim is attacked. This is something that many western people don't understand.

3. Western countries have caused these problems in the first place.

4. Will the USA form an alliance to protect Israel

5. Syria and Iran have a mutual defence treaty; you attack either one and both will retaliate.

6. There is a strong connection between Iran, Russia, China and Venezuela

reply to post by dooper


I thought this thread was about why this incident is important. I have clearly stated why I believe it is so. Neither you nor the OP have bothered to rebut my point, nor even stay on topic to discuss the matter.

Off topic: All military aircraft are equiped with cameras that film all conflict, if there was indeed fire emenating from the school, or the UN hq there would be footage as justification for the subsequent aerial shelling. Israel has failed to provide this evidence at the request of the UN security council and general asembly. It has nothing to do with rifles and aiming difficulty.

Here's an article that puts it into perspective,

Media and activists ignore horrors when Israel can't be blamed

Perhaps as many as 400,000 people have been killed and some two million driven from their homes since 2003. Are we talking about Gaza? No, it is Darfur and the victims are black Christians and animists in southern Sudan. The culprit? The Arab Islamist government in Khartoum. But where are the street protests against the Islamists? There are none, because the victims are not Palestinian Arabs.

Did you hear, during the last eight years, about the 10,000 Palestinian missiles that Hamas and other terror organizations have fired at Israeli villagers and townsfolk from the Gaza Strip? I doubt it, because the victims were Israelis not Palestinians.

Perhaps you have heard about the 6,500 rockets and mortars deliberately aimed at Israeli civilian targets since Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005? No? Well, again, that's because the suffering population is in southern Israel, not among the Palestinians.

www.americanthinker.com...

The MSM is anti Israeli, they have a clear agenda and it has nothing to do with covering the suffering of peoples.

reply to post by The_Modulus


I can guarantee you, the press, and therefore you, and even the useless UN, is not getting all of Israel's film.

You're asking me to speculate on why this happened. Possibly a UAV camera caught a group of yahoos firing a rocket from nearby, they ran, and into the school.

How am I supposed to know?

But I do know there's a number of buildings still standing all throughout Gaza that have not been attacked, indicating that the Israelis haven't been able to detect activity from them.

Rocket launchers? They shoot at them.

Rockets launched and rocketeers run into a building - school, mosque, UN headquarters, food storage - it doesn't matter. Israel will blow it.

Originally posted by The_Modulus
reply to post by dooper

 

I thought this thread was about why this incident is important. I have clearly stated why I believe it is so. Neither you nor the OP have bothered to rebut my point, nor even stay on topic to discuss the matter.

Off topic: All military aircraft are equiped with cameras that film all conflict, if there was indeed fire emenating from the school, or the UN hq there would be footage as justification for the subsequent aerial shelling. Israel has failed to provide this evidence at the request of the UN security council and general asembly. It has nothing to do with rifles and aiming difficulty.

There's no point to rebut. You said:

"This conflict is important becuase it represents this perpetual cycle of violence that the global community has now recognised as a futile policy that must be abandoned at all costs."

I told you I didn't this issue was a "policy" and could not be abandoned.

reply to post by ClintK



It's clear that you have no intention of having any kind of discussion, you just want to tell people that you don't care about the conflict. Fine, thanks for wasting our time.

Originally posted by lightchild
reply to post by ClintK

 

I think it could help people answer your question if you said which country you are in.

Some are the reasons are

1. Israel has nukes and is the only country in the middle east with them.

2. To Muslims, their religion comes first and their country second.
Iran is not an Arab country, they don't even get on that well with Arabs, but they are united as Muslims. They put their differences aside when a fellow Muslim is attacked. This is something that many western people don't understand.

3. Western countries have caused these problems in the first place.

4. Will the USA form an alliance to protect Israel

5. Syria and Iran have a mutual defence treaty; you attack either one and both will retaliate.

6. There is a strong connection between Iran, Russia, China and Venezuela

I'm in the USA.

Nukes are important, but Pakistan has them too and there is a real danger they will fall into terrorist hands. And they'll use them -- they've said so.

Syria and Iran's mutual defense treaty would be tested if Israel bombed Iran to try to take out their nuclear production facilities. I rather doubt they'd start a war with Israel, and I know Israel wouldn't start a war with them.

You're right, there is a strong connection between Iran, Russia and China, but I don't think they'd get involved if there was a war between Iran and Israel because they KNOW we'd then have to get involved.

Originally posted by The_Modulus
reply to post by ClintK

 

It's clear that you have no intention of having any kind of discussion, you just want to tell people that you don't care about the conflict. Fine, thanks for wasting our time.

No, you know what the problem is? I don't agree with YOU that the conflict is important. Back up what you say. WHAT POLICY? If this conflict is the result of a POLICY which can be ABANDONED then tell me what it is.

You make as though I MUST put this issue on a pedestal. You're totally intolerant of a different viewpoint.

As I have clearly stated in three previous posts within this thread, the actions of the Israeli state demonstrate a failure to resort to peaceful means of problem-solving. As a global community we have learned from past experience that violence and death can never lead to lasting peace as it always sows hatred and fundaentalism.

This conflict is important because it symbolises the failure of a 'civilised' and advanced nation with educated and learned leaders to learn from these facts.

You posit that the situation pales in comparrison to other humanitarian crises around the globe, and on this point I completely agree with you. Myanmar, Darfur, recently Kenya, the Congo, Zimbabwe, all of these crises involve far greater human suffering that what we are seeing in Gaza.

But my point is that this is not why the issue is newsworthy, it is worthy of our interest because it symbolises the failure, to a large extent, of modern nations, unlike other crises, in which we are seeing the predictable results of disorganised and corrupt governments in extremely factional, impoverished and uneducated third-world nations.

reply to post by The_Modulus


So peacefully asking Hamas to stop lobbing 1800+ rockets per year into their civillian populations would have worked? Or maybe you suggest paying them off in some way and thus rewarding them for launching rockets at their citizens?
This flower child mentallity that there is no place for war does not coincide with historical reallity.

reply to post by SectionEight


There are plenty potentially succesful peaceful solutions to the Gaza problem. None of them as simplistic as merely 'asking' Hamas to stop

I posted one possible sollution to the problem in this thread, unfortunately not many people care about discussing solutions, so please feel free to comment or crit my suggestion.

Originally posted by The_Modulus
reply to post by SectionEight

 

There are plenty potentially succesful peaceful solutions to the Gaza problem. None of them as simplistic as merely 'asking' Hamas to stop

I posted one possible sollution to the problem in this thread, unfortunately not many people care about discussing solutions, so please feel free to comment or crit my suggestion.

Ok, read your proposal. For one thing Hamas is ruling the people under an iron grip of terror. If the people left so would their place of power. They would not allow this to happen just as they defiantly launch rockets with no care that the people will ultimately die of starvation and disease if this seige is unending.
Do you honestly think Hamas would allow UN convoys to come cart their hostage away? They would make war on the UN personell and murder those that tried to leave.

Here is a possible scenario if the current one is allowed to play out.
Starvation and desease start sweeping over the 1.4 million people with no hope of life so they turn on Hamas and throw their butts to the wolves. Basic human survival instinct. With Hamas out of the way then your ideallistic approach now becomes possible.