# airstrikes on Gaza **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 11, 2014, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856 "2014-07-11T14:55:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 38
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/741 "2014-07-28T13:46:58Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Whereas Hamas, of course, are not shelling the shit out of anyone. Their rockets are merely designed as firework displays to amuse the children. Israel has no right at all to use force to prevent such harmless fun. > > Your evident bias is clearly ingrained. Were you perhaps bitten by an Israeli as a child? No, I am not showing bias by pointing out that your comment was ridiculous. Everybody does not blame Israel. Not that it excuses their attempts but Hamas’ rocket attacks can’t be described as “shelling the shit” out of anything when stood against the Israeli assault. Is there any upper limit in civilian casualties that might give you pause in your biases? I’ve said elsewhere in this thread that I think the only long term solution to this is probably a reoccupation coupled with some kind of Marshall plan. Beating them bloody isn’t going to work. Syria was willing to be 10 times as bloody with their rebels and look how that worked. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/742 "2014-07-28T13:59:35Z")
Even in this bastion of lefties, [Israel wins the popularity contest](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=6078) quite handily. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/743 "2014-07-28T15:20:54Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Is there any upper limit in civilian casualties that might give you pause in your biases? “Okay Israel, you’re allowed to use force to defend yourself, but only if fewer than 200 civilians are killed. And don’t you dare use the ‘they’re using civilians as human shields’ argument either!” Give me a break. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/744 "2014-07-28T15:23:28Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > “Okay Israel, you’re allowed to use force to defend yourself, but only if fewer than 200 civilians are killed. And don’t you dare use the ‘they’re using civilians as human shields’ argument either!” > > Give me a break. [http://www.israellycool.com/2014/07/26/latest-analysis-of-gazan-casualties-in-operation-protective-edge-as-of-july-25th/](http://www.israellycool.com/2014/07/26/latest-analysis-of-gazan-casualties-in-operation-protective-edge-as-of-july-25th/) ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/745 "2014-07-28T15:36:58Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Disarming them will suffice. So rinse and repeat? Have we achieved “an acceptable level of violence” ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/746 "2014-07-28T15:48:54Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So rinse and repeat? Have we achieved “an acceptable level of violence” “repeat”? When were they disarmed before? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/747 "2014-07-28T17:17:39Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > There just has to be a special circle of Hell reserved for Hamas. Their policy is plain: keep firing rockets at Israel, place children in harms way (close to rocket launch sites, for instance) and pray to their god that as many children as possible die or are horribly maimed when Israel defends itself. It’s win-win for Hamas, until the rest of the world call them out on their disgusting actions. But the rest of the world, of course, is far too busy blaming Israel. And so the cycle continues. Of course Israel is blameless in all of this. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/748 "2014-07-28T17:21:06Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I wasn’t here at the time, but I would have spoken in condemnation. The difference is that those debates don’t last very long because there isn’t bunch of Turkey apologists ready to imply that any critics of Turkey must have a bias against Turkey or its people (or perhaps just their religion) ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/749 "2014-07-28T17:30:45Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The difference is that those debates don’t last very long because there isn’t bunch of Turkey apologists ready to imply that any critics of Turkey must have a bias against Turkey or its people (or perhaps just their religion) Ok, then perhaps you can show me some threads of people criticizing Turkey’s invasion of Northern Iraq or their invasion, occupation and ethnic cleansing of Northern Cyprus that continues to the this day. Similarly, to bring up another European country that’s behaved worse than Israel, in recent memory Bulgaria forcibly ethnically cleansed its entire ethnic Turkish population(who’d lived there since before the US Constitution was drawn up). How many times have they been criticized for this? Hell, how many people reading this don’t have to run to google to find out about what I’m talking about. Beyond that, you keep making yourself look very foolish by claiming that anyone who criticizes Israel is labeled an anti-Semite but provide little evidence to support this. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/750 "2014-07-28T17:32:00Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > I wasn’t here at the time, but I would have spoken in condemnation. Turkey continues to occupy Northern Cyprus to this day and has even set up it’s own puppet government and continues to have settlers move into it. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/751 "2014-07-28T17:42:15Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > “The precise magnitude of Arab immigration into and within Palestine is, as Bachi noted, unknown. Lack of completeness in Ottoman registration lists and British Mandatory censuses, and the immeasurable illegal, unreported, and undetected immigration during both periods make any estimate a bold venture into creative analysis. In most cases, those venturing into the realm of Palestinian demography—or other demographic analyses based on very crude data—acknowledge its limitations and the tentativeness of the conclusions that may be drawn.” > > So - no “pegging” the number. In your effort to rebutt everything the other side says, you ignore reasonable conclusions and it makes your position look weaker. That fact that we cannot get exact numbers does not prevent us from reaching reasonable conclusions about the proportion of immigrants in the arab population in 1948. The arab population in 1948 was about 1.2 million. The arab population in 1922 (after WWI, it looks like the population dropped a lot during and after WWI) was about 589,000. Using a growth rate of 2.5% (which the article doesn’t seem to consider unreasonable), we arrived at about a million by 1948. It is clear that the vast majority of Jews in Israel in 1948 were immigrants. There is reasonably clear evidence that the majority of the Arabs were not. If the Israel apologists cannot even accept these reasonable assumption then it is hardly surprising that they think “we will give you peace if you give us peace” should be enough to settle the issue and leave it at that. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/752 "2014-07-28T17:44:07Z")
> [@Gary\_Kumquat](#): > > Israel’s response has not stopped the threat. Hamas stepped up their ineffectual rocket strikes in response, and still the actual risk to Israel’s civilians is negligible. > > But their response has killed a thousand civilians, and they knew well what they were doing. > > In short, they have increased the risk to their own civilians (but still to a point that barely registers, such is the gulf in strengths between Hamas and Israel) with a course of action that has killed over a thousand civilians. That is immoral. > > Taking the high ground, accepting a tiny risk to yourself rather than killing the innocent, is moral. Israel seems to be much more ready to Negotiate with those who actually have the potential to destroy the state. They don’t seem very motivated to negotiate with people who mostly just fuck up the morning commute every few years. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/753 "2014-07-28T17:44:50Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > In your effort to rebutt everything the other side says, you ignore reasonable conclusions and it makes your position look weaker. That fact that we cannot get exact numbers does not prevent us from reaching reasonable conclusions about the proportion of immigrants in the arab population in 1948. The arab population in 1948 was about 1.2 million. The arab population in 1922 (after WWI, it looks like the population dropped a lot during and after WWI) was about 589,000. You don’t get it. You have no idea what the arab population _actually_ was, neither in 1948 nor in 1922. Because of (and I quote) “lack of completeness in Ottoman registration lists and British Mandatory censuses, and the immeasurable illegal, unreported, and undetected immigration during both periods” > [@](#): > > It is clear that the vast majority of Jews in Israel in 1948 were immigrants. There is reasonably clear evidence that the majority of the Arabs were not. No, there isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/754 "2014-07-28T17:46:15Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Turkey continues to occupy Northern Cyprus to this day and has even set up it’s own puppet government and continues to have settlers move into it. The fact that \*\*Trinopus \*\*was probably not even aware of this speaks for itself. Not that I blame him. When was the last time there was a UN resolution over it, or for that matter an article in NYT or WP? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/755 "2014-07-28T17:54:09Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > Even in this bastion of lefties, [Israel wins the popularity contest](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/poll.php?do=showresults&pollid=6078) quite handily. I don’t recall seeing a vigorous defense of Hamas anywhere in this thread. How about we have a poll of Palestinians vs illegal Israeli settlers or Palestinians vs the Israelis that kidnapped and executed a random Palestinian teenager. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/756 "2014-07-28T17:56:48Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > “repeat”? When were they disarmed before? So they weren’t disarmed during the occupation? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/757 "2014-07-28T18:05:42Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Ok, then perhaps you can show me some threads of people criticizing Turkey’s invasion of Northern Iraq or their invasion, occupation and ethnic cleansing of Northern Cyprus that continues to the this day. Its not a debate, its kind of open and shut. Why would anyone start a debate thread over it? > [@](#): > > Similarly, to bring up another European country that’s behaved worse than Israel, in recent memory Bulgaria forcibly ethnically cleansed its entire ethnic Turkish population(who’d lived there since before the US Constitution was drawn up). > > How many times have they been criticized for this? No one leaps to their defense. Criticism is not necessary. > [@](#): > > Hell, how many people reading this don’t have to run to google to find out about what I’m talking about. Shit happens all over the world and we don’t really pay attention for several reasons: It fades into the background of “shit that happens over there” There isn’t enough of a debate over what we can or should be doing to support the oppressors. The violence doesn’t spill into our back yard (or military bases). No one jumps to the defense of the oppressors so it just fades into the background of horrible shit that happens in other parts of the world. > [@](#): > > Beyond that, you keep making yourself look very foolish by claiming that anyone who criticizes Israel is labeled an anti-Semite but provide little evidence to support this. Every time I make this claim I give examples and every time, those examples are dismissed as the opinions of a small handful of posters. Do I really need to go back and dig up flat out accusations of anti-semitism by Brazil84 or persistent questions asking why I am singling out israel for special treatment; questions asking what it is about israel that is different that makes me so biased against them or their people? So I don’t think I’m making myself look foolish so much as you are making yourself look arrogant and dismissive. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/758 "2014-07-28T18:07:04Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > So they weren’t disarmed during the occupation? They didn’t have rockets, no. But they had arms. And am I to surmise that you concur that there is no “occupation” of Gaza? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/759 "2014-07-28T18:07:51Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > You don’t get it. You have no idea what the arab population _actually_ was, neither in 1948 nor in 1922. Because of (and I quote) “lack of completeness in Ottoman registration lists and British Mandatory censuses, and the immeasurable illegal, unreported, and undetected immigration during both periods” I don’t need to know exact numbers to be able to say the overwhelming majority of jews in Palestine in 1948 were immigrants and the majority of arabs in Palestine in 1948 were not. > [@](#): > > No, there isn’t. Of course there is. ---
**Author:** ![Terr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Terr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terr)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2014, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856/760 "2014-07-28T18:09:25Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I don’t need to know exact numbers to be able to say the overwhelming majority of jews in Palestine in 1948 were immigrants and the majority of arabs in Palestine in 1948 were not. You have no way to back this up. As even the link you posted says - there is no way to know not just the “exact” numbers, but no way to even estimate it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856.md?page=37) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/airstrikes-on-gaza/692856.md?page=39)