On Jan 3, 2009, at 9:46 PM, Chris Gehlker wrote: > > 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"?
Both. They voted for and tolerate the current situation. Hamas, does some good works and yet puts the people it claims to represent in harms way. > >> >> >> 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." They have no obligation other than to not *directly* target civilians. > > > 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? Because sitting idly while rockets fall on their citizens every day, "cease fire" or not is also unacceptable. Better to widen the buffer zone to exclude the short range stuff than to let the status quo continue while Iran arms Hamas with more and more long range rockets. > >> >> >> 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. Only in the sense that the UN will blather on about International Law shortly and Israel has to fight that fight too. IDF has gotten smarter, by starting their own youtube channel showing what they are targeting. Seeing video of a mortor in the shadow of a school is powerful. =c= _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
