[nickolai]

Who's at fault here? Talk about the situation tearing your conscience in half...

I have family that live in Israel and UK, and its difficult for me to really cast a view to any of my family - because Israelis really fucking hate the Arabs. Not every Israeli, but the majority of them - from what certain members of my family are venting as well as on social media.

Don't get me wrong - Hamas should not be firing rockets into Israel. Their only target is killing as many Israelis as they can - but the Iron Dome is intercepting about 90% of them. Only 1 Israeli was killed during the initial rocket attacks. Now as we stand 3 Israeli citizens have been killed by rockets - 56 soldiers have been killed on the front line in combat.

Over 1400 people have been killed in Gaza. 8,200 have been wounded and in these statistics over 80% of those have been civilians.

Now, i'm all for protecting our land. But in my opinion Israel has decided to use military rather than democracy and negotiation, and this is damn wrong. The Iron Dome system is working. More people get killed on the streets in the UK daily in gang warfare than the amount of civilians that have been killed by Hamas rockets. Israel, in my opinion, has WAY over reacted. Yes i concede that Hamas are using civilians as human shields, but the more civilians being killed the more Hamas are looking better out of this. They may not be winning the land war but are winning the political war by a long way.

I just think that the Western World is turning a blind eye to Israel. If, say, Iran invaded Armenia and killed thousands of Christians, injuring hundreds of thousands then Iran would be accused of war crimes. America and Britain would be straight in there and we all know the rest...

It plays with your conscience this situation. Would be really interesting to see the views of others about this.

[DevilsSon]

Wow - amazingly reasonable post from you, nickolai.

My view is very similar to yours. Hamas is a terrorist organisation. No matter how you look at it, no matter what the historic background is, no matter what they might say about themselves, they are terrorists. And fighting terrorists has always been difficult, especially in urban, heavily populated territories. Even in desert like places, it's tough. Look at the civilian death toll in Yemen where the US just launches drone attack after drone attack [somehow we have all forgotten about that in the last few months]. And as long as Hamas is legitimately seen to represent Palestinians in Gaza, Israel will have a legitimate reason to go to war.

Now the disproportionate violence and especially the civilian death toll in Gaza is sickening me. Whether you have a legitimate right to fight Hamas is one question. The way you go about it is a different one. If that's what Israel understands to be warfare, than it makes me literarily sick and embarrassed that I have been always defending their actions in previous confrontations. It needs to stop and it's sickening that no Western country seems to even have the slightest influence over it. Israel, for such a tiny country, has become tremendously influential, and they just play it all out. But it's not the right thing to do and in the longer run, it will have sever repercussions on Israel and Jews in general, I am sure of that.

[Jim Bon Jovi]

Originally Posted by DevilsSon

Wow - amazingly reasonable post from you, nickolai.

My view is very similar to yours. Hamas is a terrorist organisation. No matter how you look at it, no matter what the historic background is, no matter what they might say about themselves, they are terrorists. And fighting terrorists has always been difficult, especially in urban, heavily populated territories. Even in desert like places, it's tough. Look at the civilian death toll in Yemen where the US just launches drone attack after drone attack [somehow we have all forgotten about that in the last few months]. And as long as Hamas is legitimately seen to represent Palestinians in Gaza, Israel will have a legitimate reason to go to war.

Now the disproportionate violence and especially the civilian death toll in Gaza is sickening me. Whether you have a legitimate right to fight Hamas is one question. The way you go about it is a different one. If that's what Israel understands to be warfare, than it makes me literarily sick and embarrassed that I have been always defending their actions in previous confrontations. It needs to stop and it's sickening that no Western country seems to even have the slightest influence over it. Israel, for such a tiny country, has become tremendously influential, and they just play it all out. But it's not the right thing to do and in the longer run, it will have sever repercussions on Israel and Jews in general, I am sure of that.

Disproportionate is the key word here: Is it acceptable to wage war on the scale that Israel is which clearly will mainly affect civilians on the basis of rocket attacks which by and large are either being shot out of the sky or landing in empty fields?...

As for why is the West sitting back and doing nothing? Various reasons, mainly that the modern state of Israel (I've no real interest to get into arguments relating to questionable ancient religious texts) is a Western creation so they need to back them up no matter what otherwise they're tacitly aknowledging the fact that this cluster **** is the fault of the West.

As well as that, there's a huge amount of Israeli wealth and economic links between Israel and the West, particularly the US so their hands are tied as they can't afford to lose Israeli support.

[samboraisgodUK]

Originally Posted by Jim Bon Jovi

Disproportionate is the key word here: Is it acceptable to wage war on the scale that Israel is which clearly will mainly affect civilians on the basis of rocket attacks which by and large are either being shot out of the sky or landing in empty fields?...

What would a proportionate Israeli response look like?

[Jim Bon Jovi]

Originally Posted by samboraisgodUK

What would a proportionate Israeli response look like?

Well it wouldn't be a 21st century equivalent of a colonial force using canon and machine guns on spear wielding natives for a start.

Israel has no interest in a reasoned and peaceful outcome - they can flatten tower blocks and nurseries all day long whilst holding their hands up and saying "but the terrorists!!!" safe in the knowledge that they can flatten their enemy population while the West won't do a thing as the military industrial complex means everyone is lining their pockets.

[samboraisgodUK]

Originally Posted by Jim Bon Jovi

Well it wouldn't be a 21st century equivalent of a colonial force using canon and machine guns on spear wielding natives for a start.

Israel has no interest in a reasoned and peaceful outcome - they can flatten tower blocks and nurseries all day long whilst holding their hands up and saying "but the terrorists!!!" safe in the knowledge that they can flatten their enemy population while the West won't do a thing as the military industrial complex means everyone is lining their pockets.

Okay, but that doesn't answer my question. What would a proportionate response look like?

[Jim Bon Jovi]

Originally Posted by samboraisgodUK

Okay, but that doesn't answer my question. What would a proportionate response look like?

Again, it wouldn't involve haphazardly firing rockets into densely populated civilian areas.

Israel has one of the best equipped and most powerful militaries in the world - they have the absolute best equipment to track and disrupt Hamas's movements.

It has two of the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world - use that to disrupt Hamas funding and communications.

It has one of the best special forces in the world - send them in to extract high value targets.

It receives billions in aid and military funding by the West - maybe using that for some social good in the region as opposed to buying fighter jets might make the average Arab a bit more open to dealing with Israel.

They've got billions invested in weaponary and technology which can pinpoint targets from potentially 1,000s of miles away - use that for "real" precision strikes - low yield pin point bombing that greatly reduces collateral damage.


There's way more tactical and less destructive method to take out / extract the enemy and their sites but as I said, they have no reason to do that.

[Jim Bon Jovi]

Originally Posted by samboraisgodUK

What would a proportionate Israeli response look like?

Do you think what Israel is currently doing is proportionate or just?

[samboraisgodUK]

Originally Posted by Jim Bon Jovi

Do you think what Israel is currently doing is proportionate or just?

Not at all. Though I'm glad you asked me this question. I deliberately worded my question (what would a proportionate response look like?) to be as fair and unbiased as possible yet it seems to me that by simply asking such a question it is often assumed it comes from a pro-Israel position.

With regard to your previous post - I agree with it in principle but I really don't think it's as simple as that. You have to see this from the Israeli point of view. Okay, they have the Iron Dome system which intercepts the majority of the rockets but that doesn't change the fact that those rockets are intended to kill civilians. The Israeli government has to take domestic considerations into account thus must show its people it is prepared to offer a robust response to Hamas attacks. Now, I think we can all agree that Israel's actions over the last few days have been completely out of order, though surely we can also all agree that Israel does have a right to defend itself.

Originally Posted by Jim Bon Jovi

Israel has one of the best equipped and most powerful militaries in the world - they have the absolute best equipment to track and disrupt Hamas's movements.

It has two of the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world - use that to disrupt Hamas funding and communications.

I'm sure they are doing both of these things, that doesn't mean rockets still aren't being fired into Israel

Originally Posted by Jim Bon Jovi

It receives billions in aid and military funding by the West - maybe using that for some social good in the region as opposed to buying fighter jets might make the average Arab a bit more open to dealing with Israel.

You're forgetting that the majority of Arab countries around Israel would like nothing more than to wipe it from the map. On the majority of occasions that violence has flared in the region since 1948, Israel has defended itself in response to Arab aggression. Should Israel be chided for having a better trained and more equipped military than its enemies?

With regard to your other points about using special forces to extract high value targets and the use of precision munitions, this article is a very good read: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/da...sponse-at-all/

Now, just to clarify, not for a second would I seek to defend the way Israel has behaved recently. Bombing UN schools and the like is completely deplorable. Also, I think Israel should alter many of its policies drastically (the building of settlements on Arab land, the absolute blockade of Gaza etc.). However, I do think that on most occasions the onus should be on Hamas to stop attacking Israel. Perhaps if there were no rockets fired at Israel, no suicide bombings, no kidnappings etc. then Israel would re-evaluate its policies towards Palestine.

[Jim Bon Jovi]

All fair points.

Yes Hamas are attacking them and of course rockets are being aimed at Israeli citizens despite it largely being a useless tactic now but what you essentially have here is Israel using a bulldozer to swat a bee.

What I would argue is that as the "legitimate" power here, Israel should be taking the higher ground over Hamas. The old, "don't stoop to their level" argument - is what Israel is doing legitimate or is it an act of state terrorism...