On Jan 3, 2009, at 4:13 PM, Chuck Bennett wrote: > After Israel's half hearted attempt last time, and the internal > political fallout of it this is about to get ugly and the Gazans are > going to suffer the retribution they have brought on themselves.
So which is it? Have the Gazans "brought on themselves" or are they the victims of Hamas who "'wants' their own civilians to be killed for the political gains"? > > > As a human being I hate the loss of lives about to happen. > > As a warrior I understand that when you have an enemy that tries every > day to kill your children, while running and hiding from you amongst > his own children and neighbors, then he sows their destruction along > with his own and Israel has every right to fire back at any location > firing at them, regardless of where it's coming from. This makes it sound as if Israel is limiting its strikes to purely military targets and seeks only military objectives. In fact, the Israelis don't pretend this is the case. Raanan Gissin says that "80% of military attacks are determined by psychological effects". Israel is clearly using 'violence and intimidation in pursuit of political aims.' which is the definition of "terrorism." Don't get me wrong. It is clearly better to try to intimidate the people of Gaza into abandoning their support for Hamas than to carpet bomb Gaza. If fact, if I thought there was a reasonable chance that their tactics would persuade the Gazans to reject Hamas, accept Israel's right to exist and abandon the use of missiles and suicide bombing against civilian targets in Israel, I would applaud Israel's determination to fight terrorism with terrorism. Likewise if I thought that Hamas could force Israel to abandon the blockade, tear down the walls and accept the Palestinians as full citizens, I would cheer Hamas on. > > > Hammas "wants" their own civilians to be killed for the political > gains and that is the reason they fire from schools and mosques. And Israel does precisely what Hamas wants. How dumb is that? > > > You all know that's true. > > So be it. > > Totten's take is interesting about "proportional force" > > <http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/totten/48801> > > International law allows you to keep up your military actions until > the offense stops. > > As long as the rockets keep being fired at Israel, Israel is under no > legal obligation to stop returning fire or to agree to a ceasefire.. Do you really think legality is the issue here? Lots of stupid things are legal. -- Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. -Frank William Leahy, football coach (1908-1973) _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
