About that precision bombing …


During the recent Israeli assault on Gaza, the destruction rained down on the town of Shejaiya was one of the most severe with sickening signs of carnage such as this one.

shejaiya

There is new aerial footage from a drone of what Shejaiya looks like now. This is what what Israel means by precise and targeted bombing.

Comments

  1. invivoMark says

    Look, It’s very precise bombing. Gaza is really small on a map, and I’m pretty sure Israel managed to get almost all of their bombs within its borders.

    Which contrasts with previous times, like that time they “accidentally” bombed, strafed, and torpedoed an unarmed US surveillance ship with civilians aboard. That wasn’t as precise, since the USS Liberty was many many miles from the nearest Palestinian residential dwelling/hospital/UN school.

  2. Beatrice, an amateur cynic looking for a happy thought says

    Sure. It was a precise bombing. So how did they “accidentally” kill so many children?

    Oh.

  3. StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return! says

    Annoying watermark there kinda spoils that clip. No idea what the Arabic is either. No english versionavialble huh?

    Odd to think, looking at this, that Hamas are so stupid they claim they’ve actually won. 

    If that’s what Hamas victory looks like, imagine what a Hamas loss would look like!

    What the hell were Hamas thinking to start and continue this latest war? What did they think the consequences of kidnapping and murdering teenagers and then firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities would be? Israel clearly has to defend itself and its inocent civilians from Hamas terrorist attacks. If it was any other country there wouldn’t be any criticism of it doing so.

    So, yes, this is sad but Hamas are ultimately to blame for the whole war and its consequences. Israel wars in a far more humane manner than Syria or IS or Hamas or any other nation really.

  4. StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return! says

    Also, it could look a lot worse.

    I wonder how this clip compares with parts of Syria , Iraq and other conflicts that don’t get anywhere near this level of attention for some reason?

  5. StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return! says

    Oh &dean and others befroe you claim hamas didn’t kidnap and kill those teneagers -they’ve actually admitted it -- see :

  6. aashiq says

    Our complicity with these war crimes by Israel is sickening.

    Others kill each other, but they don’t pretend otherwise, they don’t own Congress and get subsidized $1000/person annually, and they don’t cover themselves with moral pretensions.

    The Jewish claim to superior morality is either a sham, or Judaism and Zionism have parted ways. It is time for people to speak up and stop this hijacking of American politics by Israel.

  7. Holms says

    Annoying watermark there kinda spoils that clip. No idea what the Arabic is either. No english versionavialble huh?

    It’s good to see you focus so blatantly on the irrelevant stuff, putting your lack of honesty on display for all to see.

    If that’s what Hamas victory looks like, imagine what a Hamas loss would look like!

    Did you just accidentally acknowledge that they’d be wiped out / nuked? Jokingly?

    What the hell were Hamas thinking to start and continue this latest war? What did they think the consequences of kidnapping and murdering teenagers and then firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities would be?

    The perpetrators of those murders were arrested and could have been tried, but Netenyahu chose to use this as a pretext for war, in which 2000+ people were killed. Two thousand murders justified by three? I don’t think so. The term for that is collective punishment, a war crime that is an official policy of the IDF.

    Why does it not bother you that most of your points have been repeatedly refuted?

  8. Chris J says

    @StevoR:

    If that’s what Hamas victory looks like, imagine what a Hamas loss would look like!

    This is a loss for humanity. Hamas makes up only a small percentage of the casualties, which oddly enough might justify an argument that this whole debacle is a victory for Hamas. You win when your enemy becomes a monster.

    Israel clearly has to defend itself and its inocent civilians from Hamas terrorist attacks

    Clearly. Israel is doing a shit job though, at least for the innocent civilians inside Gaza.

  9. Chris J says

    Also, it could look a lot worse.

    When you can say this with a straight face while faced with entire sections of a city reduced to rubble, you have to know you’ve gone off the deep end. Because I’m feeling particularly uncharitable today, I also notice you used the word “look” rather than “be,” indicating you are more concerned with appearance.

  10. lpetrich says

    I’ve seen the theory that this is deliberate, sort of like what Israel had done to some Shiite communities in Lebanon because of Hezbollah. It’s to keep the Gazans preoccupied with rebuilding so they don’t have much desire to attack Israel.

  11. StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return! says

    @10. Holms :

    “Annoying watermark there kinda spoils that clip. No idea what the Arabic is either. No english version available huh?”- StevoR
    It’s good to see you focus so blatantly on the irrelevant stuff, putting your lack of honesty on display for all to see.

    How is noting that the clip is flawed in those regards in any way dishonest? Irrelevant, well perhaps -- although I wonder if the writing may say its actually taken from Syria like those dead children that were supposedly “palestinian” but that turned out to be Syrian instead -- but hardly lacking in honesty.

    “If that’s what Hamas victory looks like, imagine what a Hamas loss would look like!”
    Did you just accidentally acknowledge that they’d be wiped out / nuked? Jokingly?

    No I didn’t. That would be your obvious failure in reading comprehension on display again Holms. Funny I could swear I was writing in plain English. What I said was :

    If that’s what Hamas victory looks like, imagine what a Hamas loss would look like!

    What I meant was :

    If that’s what Hamas victory looks like, imagine what a Hamas loss would look like!

    The implication is that Hamas claiming victory as they have done is ridiculous and that they, in fact, lost rather badly but are in denial about it.

    Of course, Hamas aren’t the only one’s who are in denial and wrongly blaming Israel for their own self-caused problems here are they, eh Holms?

    “What the hell were Hamas thinking to start and continue this latest war? What did they think the consequences of kidnapping and murdering teenagers and then firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli cities would be?” -StevoR
    The perpetrators of those murders were arrested and could have been tried, but Netenyahu chose to use this as a pretext for war, in which 2000+ people were killed. Two thousand murders justified by three?

    Okay, first there were multiple casus belli ( causes of war) here the three main ones being :

    I) Hamas kidnapping and murdering Naftali Fraenkel (full name: Yaakov Naftali, 16, from Nof Ayalon), Gilad Shaer (full name: Gilad Michael, 16, from Talmon) and Eyal Yifrah. (19, from El’ad).

    II) Hamas indiscriminately attacking Israeli civilians with constant rocketfire.

    III) Hamas building secret tunnels and using them to launch terrorist attacks.

    So, firstly, the conflict wasn’t solely sparked by the murder of these three innocent teenagers and you implying otherwise is misleading and reveals your ignorance and or bias here. Two other major causes for the war existed and had to be addressed by Israel to save innocent lives from Jihadist terrorism.

    Secondly, your claim that : “The perpetrators of those murders were arrested and could have been tried..”

    Really? Saleh Al-Arouri whole the Hamas brigade that claimed responsibility for the kidnap and murder of three innocent boys was arrested and could be tried? Oh I don’t think so dude! See :

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/10/the-enigmatic-hamas-leader-allegedly-behind-the-israeli-kidnappings-that-ignited-war/

    Nope. Turns out the Hamas mastermind of the killings that sparked the latest round of war is probably loose in Turkey instead. No surprise that Holms is factually in error really given Holms’ past history in this debate.

    Finally, “Netenyahu (sic) chose to use this as a pretext for war ..” reveals again Holm’ Israel-bashing bigotry and refusal to acknowledge that Hamas caused this war and bears the blame for it. Hamas fired rockets, dug tunnels to use for terrorism and sought -- & still seeks too -the genocide of all Israelis.

    So, who does Holms (among others) blame? Oh Israel, of course. Because the besieged Israelis should just sit still, do nothing and allow their people to be kidnapped, murdered, blown up from above by rockets and from below by terrorist tunnels. Its such a horrible unthinkable crime that israel dares to, y’know shoot back and defend itself when it is being shot at and attacked isn’t it!? Oh wait, it isn’t! It is actually completely natural understandable and few if any other nations would have been anything like as restrained in their conduct if they were in the same circumstances.

    Ever thought of seeing this from the Israeli point-of view Holms? Of actually empathising with the real victim here? No, of course you haven’t! You’d trendily go with the Leftist wolfpack instead and blame Israel for its success in protecting its people -- a classic bit of victim-blaming if ever there was one!

    ..the term for that is collective punishment, a war crime that is an official policy of the IDF.

    So what do you call Hamas firing rockets into Israel and attacking random civilians everywhere? Oh yeah, that is even more clearly a case of collective punishment and war crimes! Every last rocket fired counts as that. But quelle surprise that’s apparently fine with Holms and other Israel-bashers here! No comment on that, no criticism of Hamas just blame it all on Israel instead! How typically deludedly detestable of them.

    Israel was fighting a war -- one that has never really stopped since the Arabs still can’t get over losing a tiny sliver of their vast Imperial domains to the Jewish people whose home it has always been. War is awful, it isn’t pretty and it has consequences. However, war by itself is NOT collective punishment or a crime and Israel had to fight this one -- as it has had to fight so many others. Hamas should have thought twice and not started this latest war, but Hamas didn’t, they got what was inevitably going to result from that. Now Hamas are so deluded they are claiming “victory” here and preparing for their next round.

    You expect that from Hamas and we all really know there can be no peace long term whilst Hamas stays in charge and behaves as they do. Hamas have to go. Or they will again (& again, & again & ..) hold their own people as well as Israel’s hostage and use the casualties of the wars they cause as emotional blackmail to demand they get their way and exterminate eight million human beings and the whole democratic, just and remarkably brave and good little nation of Israel.

    Staggeringly there are still so many pitiable fools, gullible suckers and useful idiots on the Left (!Yes! The supposedly progressive pro-Human Rights and anti-fascist Left! Lining up behind Islamofascism. Why?!) who keep falling for this obvious and well-worn tactic of Hamas’es bloody human sacrifices of too many people for their disgusting cause.

    Making it harder for Israel and attacking them for doing what the Jewish state has to do for long term peace is just ..well, words fail me. Evil is an understatement for Hamas and its de facto supporters and apologists like Holms.

    Israel deserves our full support and sympathy. Hamas does not.

  12. StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return! says

    @ ^ Correction : Saleh Al-Arouri whose Hamas brigade that claimed responsibility for the kidnap and murder of three innocent boys was arrested and could be tried?

    @9. aashiq says

    Our complicity with these war crimes by Israel is sickening.

    Only to those who are on the wrong, logical and ethical side of this issue and have totally misunderstood what is and has been happening here. Fact : Israel is far less guilty of far fewer war crimes than Hamas.

    Israel deserves our support and empathy, Hamas does not.

    Others kill each other, but they don’t pretend otherwise, they don’t own Congress ..

    Whoah! Wait what!? I thought The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was so 18th century! You, however, seem to to think its legit even now? Dude, it isn’t. Congress isn’t owned by Teh Juuuzzz!! and you should be ashamed of yourself for vomiting out that bit of Anti-Semitic / Judeaophobic if ypouprefer, Conspiracy theory.

    .. and get subsidized $1000/person annually, and they don’t cover themselves with moral pretensions.

    Citation needed on the first dubious part, rephrasing and actual making sense needed on the second word salad half there.

    The Jewish claim to superior morality (i) is either a sham, or Judaism and Zionism have parted ways. (ii) It is time for people to speak up and stop this hijacking of American politics by Israel. (iii)

    (Numbering added for referencing convenience.)

    (i) Who claims that? How about acknowledging that Jewish peopelareequallyhuman and have therighttolve inpeace without rockets and terorism aimed at them? The Israeli side is more ethical in its practices and position -- but “Jewish claim to superior morality”, not-so-sure. What exactly do you even mean by that please?

    (ii) Zionism? Really? Sigh. Do you even know what Zionism was? Its such a handy buzz phrase for Leftists I know but try to think some more before you apply it ‘k? (Oh & it doesn’t mean racism either.)

    (iii) Some more Anti-semitic Conspiracy Theory there, just what the world needs more of -- Not!

    @12. Chris J :

    “Also, it could look a lot worse.” -- StevoR
    When you can say this with a straight face (a) while faced with entire sections of a city reduced to rubble, you have to know you’ve gone off the deep end. (b) Because I’m feeling particularly uncharitable today, I also notice you used the word “look” rather than “be,” indicating you are more concerned with appearance.(c)

    (Alphabetical characters added for referencing convenience.)

    (a) You could see my face whilst I was typing that? Doubt it somehow.

    (b) City? Terrorist infrastructure and tunnels start /war zone area more like. Also, no, that means no such thing. When looking at the aftermath of a war zone you’d be mad not to expect to see destruction -- which in this case was surely well merited. Or, y’know, it wouldn’t have been bombed. Israel don’t waste expensive ammo and risk issues of various sorts on stuff that doesn’t need it. (Common sense -- apparently rare here.)

    (c) Or because “appearance” is all we have to go on here given this was a visual -- not factual or comprehensibly* text-based -- clip eh?

    * Hence my issue with the “text”being Arabic which and most of you too won’t be able to read and understand. Who knows what the information as opposed to the, well, appearance was actually about? For all I (and I suspect you also) know, the Arabic text could have been saying “here is a region in Syria levelled by ISIL /IS that people are falsely claiming is Gaza instead!” Arabic sources of information here are notoriously unrelaible and biased and not to be trusted.

    (Remember the Saddam’s Iraqi Information Minister denying the existence of US tanks that were rolling up right behind him!? 😉 Or more seriously & pertinently here, the lies about a supposed “massacre “in Jenin from a past Gaza war that t turns out just wasn’t true.)

    Independent verification definitely required. Also emotional blackmail supposedly showing the evidence of the consequences of a war Hamas started and waged by the Islamists choice -- not really convincing grounds to blame Israel for anything.

  13. StevoR : Free West Papua, free Tibet, let the Chagossians return! says

    Typo fix again :

    How about acknowledging that Jewish people are equally human and have the right to live in peace without rockets and terrorism aimed at them?

    How about we all do that eh? Is that not the correct axiomatic starting point here? T can’t we all just then think of the rest of this issue with that in mind?

    @ lpetrich :

    I’ve seen the theory that this is deliberate, sort of like what Israel had done to some Shiite communities in Lebanon because of Hezbollah. It’s to keep the Gazans preoccupied with rebuilding so they don’t have much desire to attack Israel.

    You have hmm? Seen where and think its correct because ..?? Also even if partially right (you realise there definitely were Hamas tunnels targeted and Hamas rocket firing positions etc ..) well, If only Gazans would just focus on rebuilding and not attacking Israel instead -- would that be such a bad thing?

    @11. Chris J :

    This is a loss for humanity.

    Yes it is. Which would be Hamas fault.

    Hamas makes up only a small percentage of the casualties,

    Really? You think that why? I expect that’s actually not the case and the majority of casualties are in fact Hamas Jihadists. The information provided from Gaza during the war was frequently distorted and hamas lied about an awful lot such as where missiles were stored and fired -- see :

    http://www.france24.com/en/20140805-exclusive-video-hamas-rocket-launching-pad-near-gaza-homes-un-building/

    (Note I am able to back up my case with actual evidence. Skepticism, how does it work again?)

    .. which oddly enough might justify an argument that this whole debacle is a victory for Hamas. You win when your enemy becomes a monster.

    Hamas were monsters right from the start & remain so. The opposite is factually true of Israel. Reality.

    “Israel clearly has to defend itself and its innocent civilians from Hamas terrorist attacks.”- StevoR
    Clearly. Israel is doing a shit job though, at least for the innocent civilians inside Gaza.

    Well, that would be Hamas’es responsibility not Israels.

    Israel’s first priority has to be its own innocent civilians. Hamas should equally prioritise its innocent people above its Jihadists and religio-political goals. Unfortunately Hamas culture (& wider Muslim culture too*) puts little if any value on human life and demands innocent people die and that Hamas then gets to exploit their deaths for Hamas’es political ends rather than valuing the innocent victims for their intrinsic worth of human life. This is what makes Hamas so monstrous and why I am so baffled that so many here apparently find themselves able to hold their noses and support Hamas and not Israel in this issue.

    * Evidence : that same death toll ratio -- 2,000 odd Arab fatalities vs 100 or so Israeli’s killed -- some Israel-bashers keep using to condemn Israel for; not realising that the difference in casualty figures is because Israel looks after its people whilst Hamas deliberately puts them in harms way. Also Hamas chose to fight this war -- a choice they could easily have made otherwise and avoided had they so wished. Other conflicts involving Muslims esp. Jihadists with similar methods and practices to Hamas (eg. Chechens, ISIL, Taliban, Al Quaeda ) follow similar patterns revealing the Islamic cultures lack of valuing human life.

  14. says

    What the hell were Hamas thinking to start and continue this latest war?

    Um…did you miss the news that it was Israel who started this round of bombing, as retaliation for the murder of those three teens? Did you miss the news that Israel had insufficient evidence to blame Hamas for it, but did so anyway?

    Fuck you, Stevie, you’re nothing but a racist neocon chickenhawk, mindlessly saying the same stupid shit over and over again, no matter how many times it’s shown to be wrong. Assholes like you got us nothing but endless pointless wars, and all you have to offer is more of the same.

  15. says

    I expect that’s actually not the case and the majority of casualties are in fact Hamas Jihadists.

    Including (what’s left of) that kid in the photo?

  16. says

    The perpetrators of those murders were arrested and could have been tried, but Netenyahu chose to use this as a pretext for war, in which 2000+ people were killed. Two thousand murders justified by three? I don’t think so. The term for that is collective punishment, a war crime that is an official policy of the IDF.

    Obvious and noncontroversial fact to consider: Mexicans murder Americans, on a rather regular basis, in both America and Mexico. And yet, strangely, we’re not bombing, blockading, or invading Mexico in response. And no one seems upset by this either.

  17. Holms says

    How is noting that the clip is flawed in those regards in any way dishonest?

    Dismissing or seeking to undermine something based on irrelevances is intellectually dishonest.

    What I meant was :
    If that’s what Hamas victory looks like, imagine what a Hamas loss would look like!

    Yes, and I pointed out a negative implication regarding your joking about their devastated city.

    Okay, first there were multiple casus belli ( causes of war) here the three main ones being :
    I) Hamas kidnapping and murdering Naftali Fraenkel…

    Some general points, in no particular order:
    -- Three murders do not warrant war; they warrant three murder trials, hopefully resulting in punishment against the perpetrators and possible conspirators but NOT against approximately 2,100 people, 1500 of whom were civilians. So no, this one is insufficient.

    -- Israel did in fact pursue the above measure, arresting 350+(!) Palestinians without charge or trial. Oh and killing 9 of them in the process, oops.

    -- Also bear in mind that there was a kidnapping and murder of a Palestinian teen by an Israeli, which was properly condemned by the Israeli government and pursued by trial. No ensuing war launched by Palestinians? Weird!

    II) Hamas indiscriminately attacking Israeli civilians with constant rocketfire.

    III) Hamas building secret tunnels and using them to launch terrorist attacks.

    The first of these is either a deliberate lie by omission or a lack of research. The 2012 ceasefire signed in Egypt contained the following condition: “All Palestinian factions shall stop all hostilities from the Gaza Strip against Israel, including rocket attacks and all attacks along the border.” Yes, Palestini and Israel breached this condition with by reducing, but not ceasing, rocket attacks, resulting in 1 Israeli death and 5 injured over the course of 2013.

    However, it also contained this condition: “Israel should stop all hostilities in the Gaza Strip land, sea and air, including incursions and targeting of individuals.” I’ll give you two guesses as to whether they adhered to this condition… no, they didn’t. Israeli attacks through the same period killed 8 and injured 66 Palestinians. Clearly skewed against Palestinians, but strangely absent from your appraisal of the situation. Oh and let’s not forget about the 13 armed incursions into the strip coupled with 30 attacks on their fishing fleet.

    Oh oh and another condition of that xeasefire:
    The crossings should be opened, facilitating the movement of people and goods; Israel should refrain from restricting residents’ movements and from targeting residents in border areas; procedures of implementation should be dealt with 24 hours after the start of the ceasefire.”
    This one was completely ignored by Israel.

    As for your point III, yes, this is another such breach of that ceasefire. Note that no one here condones it, and I agree that it should not have been done. Because I and others here are not nearly as lopsided as yourself, pardoning all wrongs by one side while condemning the same wrongs in the other.

    So what do you call Hamas firing rockets into Israel and attacking random civilians everywhere? Oh yeah, that is even more clearly a case of collective punishment and war crimes! Every last rocket fired counts as that. But quelle surprise that’s apparently fine with Holms and other Israel-bashers here! No comment on that, no criticism of Hamas just blame it all on Israel instead!

    I and others here have repeatedly corrected you on this point multiple times in direct reply to you, but you are blatantly lying by pretending that we have not done so.

    So to reiterate those multiple occasions: indiscriminate rocket / mortar fire into civilian centers is also a warcrime. No one here has ever condoned these attacks; to the contrary, they have been condemned repeatedly. We aren’t giving Hamas a clean bill of conduct, we are condemning many actions from both factions, and that is where we differ to you -- you refuse to see any wrongdoing in Israel, giving them a free pass and making yourself guilty of exactly the accusation you level at us albeit in reverse.

    We also note that even when both Israel and Palestinian factions do the same crime, it usually skews heavily against the Palestinian population -- another factor glaringly absent in your appraisal -- and further that Israel has long been the larger contributor of the general state of upheaval.

    A note for the dense / dishonest: ‘larger contributor’ does not mean ‘sole contributor’ and should not be construed as giving other factions a clean bill of innocence.

  18. Holms says

    #9 aashiq:

    …and get subsidized $1000/person annually, and they don’t cover themselves with moral pretensions.

    Citation needed on the first dubious part, rephrasing and actual making sense needed on the second word salad half there.

    It’s pretty clear. He said “…they don’t cover themselves with moral pretensions”, which means that they don’t cover themselves with moral pretensions.

    (a) You could see my face whilst I was typing that? Doubt it somehow.

    You are being facetious by deliberately taking a common figure of speech literally.

    (b) City? Terrorist infrastructure and tunnels start /war zone area more like. Also, no, that means no such thing. When looking at the aftermath of a war zone you’d be mad not to expect to see destruction – which in this case was surely well merited. […]

    Some of your war crimes apologetics in action, in which you openly endorse turning a civilian center into a war zone.

    Israel don’t waste expensive ammo and risk issues of various sorts on stuff that doesn’t need it.

    You are forgetting that Israeli hardware and ammuniton is funded by American foreign aid, and if they run out, they can simply ask for a resupply. This was actually the topic of a post here not so long ago; a pity you didn’t catch it.

    …Although I see you actually replied to it eight times. My bad! It seems that you actually are well aware of this, but chose to ignore it so as to defend poor poor Israel some more.

    (c) Or because “appearance” is all we have to go on here given this was a visual – not factual or comprehensibly* text-based – clip eh?

    * Hence my issue with the “text”being Arabic which and most of you too won’t be able to read and understand. Who knows what the information as opposed to the, well, appearance was actually about? For all I (and I suspect you also) know, the Arabic text could have been saying “here is a region in Syria levelled by ISIL /IS that people are falsely claiming is Gaza instead!” Arabic sources of information here are notoriously unrelaible and biased and not to be trusted.

    You’re seriously saying that you’re sceptical that the destruction pictured is within Gaza? Despite it being common knowledge that there was just a war there? Jesus christ that is some amazing hyperscepticism. However, here you go:
    http://graphics.wsj.com/gaza-before-after/
    Independant verification, only an internet search away! Now work on your blatant dishonesty.

    @ lpetrich :
    I’ve seen the theory that this is deliberate, sort of like what Israel had done to some Shiite communities in Lebanon because of Hezbollah. It’s to keep the Gazans preoccupied with rebuilding so they don’t have much desire to attack Israel.

    You have hmm? Seen where and think its correct because ..?? Also even if partially right…

    ‘Partially right’?? You’ve been told numerous times that it is part of the official IDF policy to target civilian zones. How many more times will you pretend otherwise?

    …well, If only Gazans would just focus on rebuilding and not attacking Israel instead – would that be such a bad thing?

    Speaking of which, you’ve also replied to Mano’s post on this matter, and thus are well aware of the fact that the Israel blockade prevents construction materials entering Gaza. Well, that is you should be well aware of that, but I see you have set that fact aside as well.

    #11 ChrisJ

    Hamas makes up only a small percentage of the casualties,

    Really? You think that why? I expect that’s actually not the case and the majority of casualties are in fact Hamas Jihadists.

    I notice that you say you expect ChrisJ is wrong, indicating that you didn’t bother to check. Here you go. Note that even the IDF’s figures -- the group least likely to lie to increase Palestinian sympathy -- indicate 55% of the deaths are civilian. Since your bias to all things Israeli is well known, I guess you are going to have to drop the idea that only a minority of the casualties are civilian.

    (Kidding -- I know better than to trust in your intellectual honesty.)

    (Note I am able to back up my case with actual evidence. Skepticism, how does it work again?)

    This line is kind of hilarious, given your demonstrated lack of checking anything with which you disagree; see: most of the preceding post. True Scepticism in your view appears to mean believing all information that happens to align with your sympathies and assuming all disagreeing information to be a lie. Classic.

    Evidence : that same death toll ratio – 2,000 odd Arab fatalities vs 100 or so Israeli’s killed – some Israel-bashers keep using to condemn Israel for; not realising that the difference in casualty figures is because Israel looks after its people whilst Hamas deliberately puts them in harms way.


    a) You appear not to know what the word ‘evidence’ means. A conjectural claim is not evidence.
    b) Regarding the proximity of Hamas and civilians, I will copy an earlier reply of mine from another thread to you. This is going to be long and might require you to think, thus I am fairly confident that you will skip out of this conversation with no further reply, but here it is regardless:

    Be honest, have you ever seen the size of the land they are on? I think I recall you saying in another thread that you are a resident of Adelaide, Australia, so fire up google maps or something and use that as a reference. Adelaide and the Gaza Strip are both coastal and are both oriented mostly north-south, so that makes the comparison quite easy.

    Starting with the coastline, start drawing a line at the corner of Beach Road and The Esplanade in the suburb of Christie’s Beach (by right clicking ==> measure distance), then left click where Globe Derby Drive meets Port Wakefield Road close to Parafield Gardens. That’s a length of 39.5km and is an almost perfect match for the length of the Strip’s coast, though the angle isn’t quite right. Next, left click at the junction between North East Road and Montague Road in Ridgehaven, giving us the full extent of Gaza’s north border. Next, head back south to the junction between Whitings Road and Kays Road in between the regional towns of McLaren Vale and Blewitt Springs, then back the the first point at Christies Beach.

    This gives you a slightly wonky rectangle that is actually very close to the dimensions of the Strip, missing only bit of a bulge around the south east corner. This rectangle contains an estimated 1,816,379 people, and has an area (if it was drawn to much more precise directions than those I gave) of 360km^2.

    Now look to the size of Adelaide, which actually stretches over 90km from Sellicks Beach in the south to Gawler up north. Adelaide has 1,291,666 people living within an area of 1,827km^2. Do you notice a gigantic difference in crowding? 71% of the people, in five times the area? Now bear in mind that Adelaide is surrounded by farms extending hundreds of kilometers up and down the coast and inland, while the Gazans are entirely blockaded within one fifth of Adelaide and must produce all their own food within that that space.

    Do you see the damn problem yet? They were put there by Israel and they are jammed cheeck by jowl, made worse by the fact that they need to spend some of that area on farmland rather than more housing because Israel restricts much international aid across the borders. Which you should be aware of, given that you replied in the comments to that post.

    Thus, Hamas are in close proximity to residential areas because that is where they have been placed by Israel’s forced relocation. Please try to know what the hell you are talking about before trying to blame the victim.

    Fisking your shit is becoming trivially easy, StevoR. All I have to do is 1) adopt the opposite stance to you, 2) hey presto! I will be right 90% of the time.

  19. Holms says

    Correction of proofreading fail in #21:
    “The first of these is either a deliberate lie by omission or a lack of research. The 2012 ceasefire signed in Egypt contained the following condition: “All Palestinian factions shall stop all hostilities from the Gaza Strip against Israel, including rocket attacks and all attacks along the border.” Yes, Palestinians breached this condition by reducing, but not ceasing, rocket attacks, resulting in 1 Israeli death and 5 injured over the course of 2013.”

    Other minor stuff as well, but that sentence in particular was barely legible.

  20. Chris J says

    @StevoR:

    Other people have responded to you already, so I’ll just point this out:

    This is what makes Hamas so monstrous and why I am so baffled that so many here apparently find themselves able to hold their noses and support Hamas and not Israel in this issue.

    Name one person on this entire forum that “supports Hamas.” Go ahead, name one. I dare you.

    I can see people supporting the Gazans and Palestinians (the ones being senselessly cordoned off and bombed), but nobody supporting a terrorist group. Firing rockets into Israeli civilian centers? That’s a war crime! Nobody needs to say it. You, however, seem to think (at various times) that Israel doesn’t do war crimes or that their war crimes are justified. Thus, when responding to you, we respond by pointing out the problems with Israel, the problems you wish to sweep aside.

  21. says

    @ StevoR

    Annoying watermark there kinda spoils that clip.

    Annoying destruction of innocent peoples’ homes and livelihoods kinda spoils the watermark, fuckweasel.

    Odd to think, looking at this, that Hamas are so stupid they claim they’ve actually won. 

    If that’s what Hamas victory looks like, imagine what a Hamas loss would look like!

    Let’s take a look at the destruction in Sharpville a few years ago shall we: Link here (Warning: Graphic violence depicted). That didn’t exactly break the spirit of those fighting Apartheid. It was a watershed event that finally led to an Apartheid-free and integrated South Africa.

    What the hell were Hamas thinking to start and continue this latest war?

    … and what the hell were those little school kids protesting about learning Afrikaans for? What did they think the consequences of scaring those poor police officers would be? The police clearly had to defend themselves and innocent civilians from little school kids’ attacks. If it was any other country there wouldn’t be any criticism of them doing so… Also, it could look a lot worse.

  22. says

    @ StevoR

    No idea what the Arabic is either. No english versionavialble [sic] huh?

    Hate-filled person, Shuja’iyya (حي الشجاعية) is the neighbourhood district that the UAV is flying over. Yeah, looks really scary written in Arabic and all. But now that you’ve learned that you can stop shitting yourself about it.

    Perhaps, as you learn more about the world around you, you will let go of your hateful narrative and open up to the fact that these are just people after all.

  23. Anton Mates says

    People have addressed pretty much everything else StevoR said, but:

    Oh &dean and others befroe you claim hamas didn’t kidnap and kill those teneagers -they’ve actually admitted it – see :

    Sigh, no, they haven’t.

    Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas official living in exile, stated that the people who kidnapped and killed the teens were Hamas fighters. That’s it. That’s all your linked video is based on.

    Hamas leadership have repeatedly said, before and after his statement, that they did not plan, order or even know about the kidnapping before it happened. (And they have absolutely no reason to lie about this, considering that they’ve also expressed approval of the kidnapping.) AFAIK al-Arouri’s statement does not actually contradict their position--he vaguely credits the kidnapping to “brothers” carrying out “the popular will.”

    A couple of possibilities exist concerning al-Arouri’s involvement. He may have financed the kidnapping attempts on his own, without talking to the Hamas leaders in Palestine. Or he may have had nothing whatever to do with the kidnapping, and he’s just lying, trying to take the credit in order to make himself seem politically relevant despite his exile.

    Either way, this crime wasn’t an official Hamas action. Retaliating against the entire organization for it--let alone the people of Gaza--is, yes, collective punishment.

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