IDF have told The Times they expect to invade Gaza this weekend.

[SR4]

 

im tempted at this point to say fuck both sides. this shit is ridiculous.

 

maybe the UN should create a peace treaty issuing a mandate for the creation of the first uniformly atheist state of Israel-Palestine.

[azatoth]

Fuck Israel.

 

I liked how on the news here they only talked about the three Israelis killed in the rocket attacks and not a single word about the 18 killed Palestinians. It's like a dead Palestinian isn't worth as much as a dead Israeli. It's pretty clear who controls the narrative in the mainstream media.

 

I don't condone either side, but my sympathies are on the Palestinians side, just because of the horrible asymmetry of the conflict.

[joshuatxuk]

 

im tempted at this point to say fuck both sides. this shit is ridiculous.

 

maybe the UN should create a peace treaty issuing a mandate for the creation of the first uniformly atheist state of Israel-Palestine.

 

I already say fuck both sides. As much as I despise pro-Israel lobbying here (in Texas most "pro-Israel" activists = Christian evangelicals) I can't help but dismiss the overtly pro-Palestinian activists either. There seems to be a disconnect between leftists and the reality that Hamas has forcibly overtaken Gaza. Delusional religious zealots have bullied their way to power and they're doing just as much to start a war as the right-wingers in Israel. Yes, I know it's lightly armed insurgents versus an arsenal of tanks, jets, and naval forces: the sentiments on both sides are both the same and they're both wrong.

 

Awepittance made an excellent point: Obama didn't think twice before issuing a statement supporting Israel's strike. I'm flabbergasted that the international community as a whole doesn't assert calls for two-state solution. I'm tired of the continued influence of apologists for both sides. While I know secular nationalism is part of the conflict the fact is that people are fighting over some fucking soil they think is magically important to them and their ethnic kin. It's so fucking absurd.

[azatoth]

Nuke the whole place into a glass crater. If they can't share, no one gets it.

[syd syside]

 

 

 

 

 

Muslims who are moderates are people whose religion is Islam but are not revolutionary Islamists. They might be Arab nationalists, or pro-democratic; they might be primarily loyal to identities as Turks, Kurds, Berbers, Iranians; or supporters of a communal-ethnic grouping like the Sunni Muslims of Lebanon or many of the Muslims of both types in Iraq or a variety of Muslims in the former Soviet republics and Russia itself who have national or communal identities. [Note: I don’t consider Alawites or Druze to be Muslims but if you do then you can count them as anti-Islamist Muslims, too.

 

And don’t forget all those Indian Muslims and Muslims in many countries who might support any one of many different parties or movements. There are Muslims who are left-wing, too. And then there are huge numbers of African Muslims who aren’t Islamists but have other loyalties.

 

In other words, lots of Muslims have their own political views. Remember for example that 60 percent of Tunisians voted for secular parties. In Turkey, the Islamists had to disguise themselves and there are so many opposed to them that if the rival parties ever got their act together they could toss them out of office. Even in Syria there are lots of liberal, moderate, or traditional Sunni Muslims. If we only helped those people rather than the Islamists (thanks to Obama policy and its funneling through Islamist Turkey and financing by Qatar and Saudi Arabia) the moderates might even win.

 

These people listed above vary in their religious views from pious, to different varieties, to lax, or secular but they are still Muslims.

 

--There are far fewer people who could be called moderates who want to reform Islam in some active way. Perhaps it is the relative shortage of these people that is misleading. The number of liberal Muslim reformers is not large, partly due to repression and intimidation. To some extent, though not completely, a lot of the alleged power of the reform movement is a creation of Western apologist propaganda. Yes, real moderate reformers do exist—a variety of articles and books deal with their ideas—and they are courageous people. Unfortunately, the Western mass media often favors the phonies.

 

Yet aside from all the varieties of Islam (one of which is the moderate Sufi view) and relative secularists and the sincere but relatively inactive Muslims, there’s something else, too. I call it conservative-traditional Islam and it has been very powerful. Conservative-traditional Islam has dominated, for example, the Arab world and Iran and Turkey and lots of other places for decades. It has several different approaches.

 

Among the Shia there is the “Quietist” Islam which means to be very religious and stay out of politics. This is the Islam that Ayatollah Khomeini battled, defeated, and his regime has tried to repress. But it is very much alive and one day—though it might take many decades—it will boot out the Islamists of today right to the bottom of the Persian Gulf. It is also very active in Lebanon and in Iraq, too.

 

Then there is the conservative-traditionalist Islam that has controlled the official positions throughout the Arab world and will now be rooted out by the Muslim Brotherhood if it can. These clerics are not necessarily lovable liberals but they are not advocates of violent revolution and people who fully intend to implement genocide. They viewed the Islamists as heretical and just ignorant, though many have surrendered or gone over to the winning side.

 

And in some places, notably Indonesia and places in sub-Saharan Africa, a systematically moderate Islam has emerged and run things for many years, though it is being challenged by the Islamists.

 

One more thing, if the foolish and ignorant governments in many Western countries actually helped real moderates, secularists, assimilationist or acculturating-oriented Muslims, and even conservative-traditionalist ones, perhaps the Islamists would be getting pushed back in the West, especially Europe. Instead, the intellectual establishments and governments often back, coddle, fund, and cheer the radicals.

 

Imagine being an Italian immigrant to America in the 1930s who hated Mussolini or an anti-Hitler German and being told that the anti-democratic front groups were the real and legitimate representatives of your people! And while the analogy is far from exact (it happened some but nothing like today's equivalent): the American media romanticizes the pro-Hitler German-American Bund, conceals its fascist antisemitism, and then other people ask: Where are the moderate Germans?

 

So let’s get it straight: Revolutionary Islamists are real Muslims with a big base of support who want to impose repressive Sharia dictatorships. [(84% of Egyptians thinking one should be killed for leaving the Islamic faith)]. They draw on actual Islamic doctrine and can argue that their views are legitimately those of the Koran and the other holy texts. They are not a small minority but a growing mass movement that in places either has majority support or can whip the majority into line. Telling the truth about what is in Islamic texts is an intellectual duty. Showing how radicals use these texts is simple scholarly integrity.

 

But that doesn’t mean that all of Islam is inevitably radical. It doesn’t mean that the revolutionary Islamists are right and all their Muslim opponents are wrong. It doesn’t mean we don’t have courageous allies among Muslims. And they are far more courageous than the posturing Western ignoramuses who romanticize the revolutionary Islamist murderers.

 

We don’t have to agree on everything but I have met so many such valiant people—as well as people I didn’t like but we recognized our need to cooperate—it would take a long story to tell. Let me leave you with one experience.

I’m lecturing at a university in North America. Of course, I am there as an Israeli; I am explaining Israel and its policies; but I am also explaining that the great battle of our time is that against revolutionary Islamism.

 

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His book, Israel: An Introduction, has just been published by Yale University Press.

[Guest chunky]

from the nile to the euphrates

[4d0]

Hamas is a BlackOp of IDF

[goDel]

Sad news. The kids growing up there today will be feeding the anger for at least another generation. Todays war means at least 20 years of hate and anger to come. So in short, one thing is certain: this war will not change anything whatsoever. It'll only create more casualties on both sides.

[eugene]

cue Eugene in 3, 2, 1...

 

yeah, i can't be bothered this time though, those big threads on reddit worldnews about the current spark up pretty much cover it all.

 

i'll just say that this is conflict is very different, in the first hours of 2008 "cast lead" op about a hundred palestinians were killed, most of them were hamas policemen. while in the last 3 days up to 30 palestinians were killed, in hundreds of israeli airstrikes. no credible info on how many of those are non-combatants yet. hamas on the other hand already shot much more rockets in those three days than in three weeks of "cast lead", all of them targeting civilians.

 

there'll be no large scale ground invasion of gaza, or regional war or something hyperbolic of this kind, too many things have changed, i just can't be bothered to go into details atm.

[goDel]

i'll just say that this is conflict is very different, in the first hours of 2008 "cast lead" op about a hundred palestinians were killed, most of them were hamas policemen. while in the last 3 days up to 30 palestinians were killed, in hundreds of israeli airstrikes.

 

I hope you're not justifying anything on the basis of pure numbers. Killing one Arafat (hypothetical example) would have different results to killing 30 Palestineans. Numbers just don't carry -all- the necessary context. It's only a small part of the story.

[Guest chunky]

http://images.quickb...eaterisrael.gifsource: old testament ;-)

[goDel]

Some extra thoughts about the article at the NYT about tonights bombing of 200 (strategical) targets.

 

Explaining the Israeli rationale for moving from attacking purely militant targets to government buildings in Gaza, Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Saturday, “It is clear that Hamas itself makes no distinction between its terrorist military machine and the government structure and that they are intertwined.

 

I just can not understand the Israeli reasoning behind this. At least, the rational part of it. The emotional part, which can be roughly put under the "protecting the safety of Israelis", is the part I can understand. But the rational part? No.

 

What would bombing the governmental structures in Gaza do to bring safety? Wasn't it that governmental structure which helped to deescalate the tensions? And isn't it obvious some sense of intertwinedness is even necessary for Hamas to be able to deescalate inner Gaza tenions?

 

The symbolism of bombing government structures in Gaza is obvious. Currently it's as if Israel is saying it just doesn't acknowledge that government any more. So any talks between officials from both sides are off the table. And was this all necessary? What if they had bombed 50 instead of 200 targets? And only the purely militant targets? Now the fundaments of a Palestinian state have been bombed.

 

The rationalisation of Israel is given by putting militants and government under the same blanket. But that is a purely one sided view. And the lack of any sympathy for the other side of the story is astounding, imo. The way Israeli government has disqualified the Gaza government is equal to the way the Israeli government disqualified itself, imo. They've lost all credibility.

 

 

http://www.nytimes.c...a-conflict.html

[goDel]

cue Eugene in 3, 2, 1...

there'll be no large scale ground invasion of gaza, or regional war or something hyperbolic of this kind, too many things have changed, i just can't be bothered to go into details atm.

 

Lots of things have changed indeed. But the way Israel seems to try to deal with it hasn't.

 

The Middle East of 2012 is not what it was in late 2008, the last time Israel mounted a military invasion to reduce the rocket threat from Gaza. Many analysts and diplomats outside Israel say the country today needs a different approach to Hamas and the Palestinians based more on acknowledging historic grievances and shifting alliances.

 

http://www.nytimes.c...hamas.html?_r=0

 

Btw: I don't read reddit and can not be arsed to. So any response from within the borders of Israel would be gladly received on my side. I hope the rest of the board would be able to appreciate reading that side of the story as well, but I'm afraid that's another story.

 

Ironically, in situations like these emotions are fuelled pretty quick around here, despite the self-claimed assburgers.

[awepittance]

Israeli army is using on foot soldiers in such quantities to prevent civilian deaths. Hamas leaders, runners, and followers are hiding out in civilian homes taking innocent people hostage. That's so fucked up.

 

Some of the people they took hostage are Palestinian intelligence who are aiding the Israeli army of hiding locations of Hamas operatives. Pretty serious Black Ops shit this is. So basically Palestinians who are helping the IDF.

 

My cousins in Israel are all between 19-24 years old. 1 of them will likely be heading out there and my family there is telling us that's the reasons why they're going with foot soldiers. They want to minimize casualties and prefer to hone in on Hamas bases

 

whoever posted this sounds like an utter cunt, i don't know them personally that's why i say they *sound* like one

[Guest sirch]

Nuke the whole place into a glass crater. If they can't share, no one gets it.

 

Yeaaah! Nuclear Weapons!, just what is needed !!

 

 

wtf

[Guest chunky]

It was believed that a Jewish state in Palestine allied with the German Empire was within their grasp. The Zionist newspaper Die Welt wrote on October 28, 1898 enthusing about "the Germany in the East which would bring a new flowering to the people of ancient Palestine.".

 

Yet the stay of the Zionist delegation in Constantinople somewhat dampened the high spirite. Herzl was received by Wilhelm II in Constantinople at an audience that lasted one and a half hours. Herzl used this opportunity to put his views forward but he received merely the very general reply that the Kaiser would inform the Sultan of the Zionist point of view.

 

From Constantinople, the Zionist delegation travelled to Egypt by sea. From there they were to go on to Palestine in order to hold their plannedmeeting with the Kaiser. During the trip, Herzl commissioned Bodenheimer to work on an exposition that would be presented to the Kaiser. Bodenheimer wrote later commenting on this:

 

'Our imagination had been urged on unchecked on account of the extraordinary event. So following the word of God in the Bible, I demanded the land stretching the brook of Egypt and the Euphrates, as the region for Jewish colonization. In the transitional period the land would be divided into districts which would come under Jewish administration as soon as a Jewish majority was reached.'

 

This candid presentation of the Greater Israel concept (which to this day belongs to the programme of extreme right wing circles in Israel) did not, for tactical reasons, meet with Herzl's approval. He told Bodenheimer that the "time was not yet ripe for my [meaning Bodenheimer's] extensive thoughts; it would be more appropriate for the time being to create a germ cell out of which a state could grow organically.

 

 

kaiser wilhelm ii and the sultan of the ottoman empire(turkey) turned down the zionists' request for palestine. funnily enough germany, austria, and ottoman empire were allies during the first world war and each one was defeated. funny too that the war was from 1914 to 1918 and the balfour declaration was 1917, the same year that the monarchy of russia was replaced by communist rule. germany was too slow in getting out its own declaration. oops. 1 year after balfour the kaiser was exiled in the netherlands. no more stable monarchy in germany. then they had the weimar republic, then hitler/fascism..... d'oh. funny too that (at the time) isolationist america saw fit to get involved in the first world war in 1917, probably nothing to do with the rothschild and rockefeller family who funded u.s. president woodrow wilson.

wwi killed 16,563,868 people

 

wwii between 62,171,600 and 78,041,700 people dead

 

wwiii ?

[brian trageskin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8DPlfB9o1M

[eugene]

i'll just say that this is conflict is very different, in the first hours of 2008 "cast lead" op about a hundred palestinians were killed, most of them were hamas policemen. while in the last 3 days up to 30 palestinians were killed, in hundreds of israeli airstrikes.

 

I hope you're not justifying anything on the basis of pure numbers. Killing one Arafat (hypothetical example) would have different results to killing 30 Palestineans. Numbers just don't carry -all- the necessary context. It's only a small part of the story.

 

numbers matter a lot in these conflicts, israel lost the legitimacy to act because of high number of non-combatant casualties in the previous gaza conflict. noone will shed tears if hamas gets completely annihilated as long as civilians are unhurt.

 

Some extra thoughts about the article at the NYT about tonights bombing of 200 (strategical) targets.

 

Explaining the Israeli rationale for moving from attacking purely militant targets to government buildings in Gaza, Mark Regev, a spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Saturday, “It is clear that Hamas itself makes no distinction between its terrorist military machine and the government structure and that they are intertwined.

 

I just can not understand the Israeli reasoning behind this. At least, the rational part of it. The emotional part, which can be roughly put under the "protecting the safety of Israelis", is the part I can understand. But the rational part? No.

 

What would bombing the governmental structures in Gaza do to bring safety? Wasn't it that governmental structure which helped to deescalate the tensions? And isn't it obvious some sense of intertwinedness is even necessary for Hamas to be able to deescalate inner Gaza tenions?

 

The symbolism of bombing government structures in Gaza is obvious. Currently it's as if Israel is saying it just doesn't acknowledge that government any more. So any talks between officials from both sides are off the table. And was this all necessary? What if they had bombed 50 instead of 200 targets? And only the purely militant targets? Now the fundaments of a Palestinian state have been bombed.

 

The rationalisation of Israel is given by putting militants and government under the same blanket. But that is a purely one sided view. And the lack of any sympathy for the other side of the story is astounding, imo. The way Israeli government has disqualified the Gaza government is equal to the way the Israeli government disqualified itself, imo. They've lost all credibility.

http://www.nytimes.c...a-conflict.html

 

the rationale is simple, the guiding principle is restoring deterrence which faded out gradually after "cast lead" see "Annual number of attacks and casualties" here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel

 

the bombing of gov. structure is telling hamas "we will fuck you up if you don't stop this shit", there were no govnmt figures in that building and everyone knew it, israel isn't willing to severe the negotiations option completely because it will come to it unless a full takover of gaza takes place, which is very unlikely. noone can ignore the shalit release deal as well which was obviously negotiated with the help of egypt.

the militants and the government are indeed one, it's the government of hamas that orders the rocket bombing of israel just as israeli government gives orders to its military. hamas is almost in complete control of what's going on in gaza, there are islamic jihad and prc and smaller factions, but they do accept the rule of hamas for the most part. hamas is considered a terrorist organization by most western countries, so they don't really have much legitimacy to begin with.

 

that's israeli govnmt rationale as i understand it.

[goDel]

numbers matter a lot in these conflicts, israel lost the legitimacy to act because of high number of non-combatant casualties in the previous gaza conflict. noone will shed tears if hamas gets completely annihilated as long as civilians are unhurt.

 

Sure numbers matter. But they always have to be put in a context to have any meaning. Without the context numbers are just numbers.

 

Whether or not no one will shed tears when Hamas will be completely annihilated I wonder. Regardless of any close relatives, there's also the question what will happen after Hamas would be annihilated? Would that be a change for the better? I'm expecting even more tears in that universe.

 

 

the rationale is simple, the guiding principle is restoring deterrence which faded out gradually after "cast lead" see "Annual number of attacks and casualties" here: http://en.wikipedia....tacks_on_Israel

 

the bombing of gov. structure is telling hamas "we will fuck you up if you don't stop this shit", there were no govnmt figures in that building and everyone knew it, israel isn't willing to severe the negotiations option completely because it will come to it unless a full takover of gaza takes place, which is very unlikely. noone can ignore the shalit release deal as well which was obviously negotiated with the help of egypt.

 

Can you tell me about any diplomatic steps made by the Israeli government because of these growing numbers? How many illegal settlements have been closed, for instance?

[goDel]

Also, the targeted missiles at government buildings can not be justified by "there were no casualties". It's a targeted effort to wipe away institutions on which Gazan(?) society is built. A Gaza with no government is a chaotic Gaza. And that isn't in anyone's benefit, imo.

[Alcofribas]

not to mention it's completely hypocritical. no one would ever claim that it's justified if palestinians bomb israeli government institutions to send the message "we will fuck you up if you don't stop this shit." and obviously, the "shit" israel won't stop is far more severe than vice versa. truly bizarre.

[eugene]

well i gave you the context - the international legitimacy. i was speaking only hypothetically about hamas' annihilation, obviously it is connected to gaza population, most of the west would love for it to be replaced with palestinian authority.

 

the diplomatic steps are numerous negotiations via egypt that stopped the escalations (there were many after "cast lead") for short periods of time, but i guess those were becoming more and more unsustainable.

the palestinians often like to present palestine as a whole, west bank and gaza, but on the ground it's two different entities and that's how israel sees it. west bank settlements have no effect on life in gaza (there are none in gaza in case you might not know it), though they can always be brought up as an excuse for something by hamas or other groups. hamas and other groups in gaza consider the whole of israel as occupied palestine, the concept of pre-67 borders doesn't really exists for them, you can often see them referring to israeli cities (within the green line) as occupied ashdod or the settlement of ashdod, for example. there were some overtures about long term cease fire but it was conditioned with full right of return which is unrealistic.

[eugene]

Also, the targeted missiles at government buildings can not be justified by "there were no casualties". It's a targeted effort to wipe away institutions on which Gazan(?) society is built. A Gaza with no government is a chaotic Gaza. And that isn't in anyone's benefit, imo.

not to mention it's completely hypocritical. no one would ever claim that it's justified if palestinians bomb israeli government institutions to send the message "we will fuck you up if you don't stop this shit." and obviously, the "shit" israel won't stop is far more severe than vice versa. truly bizarre.

 

i wasn't justifying anything, just presenting the israeli govmnt perspective as i understand it.

i think it would be much more justified for palestinians to bomb israeli govnmt or military targets instead of randomly shooting rockets at civilians.

[SR4]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8DPlfB9o1M[/media]

 

i used to be very interested in this guy but i have to be honest he is increasingly annoying and makes me curious as to whether he is trying to push an "angle"

[Redruth]

2012