No problem. Is there a good objective non-biased book on this topic. I’m not trying to undermine you but if there isn’t a good neutral book on this topic, shouldn’t someone write one?
You say “wrong” but then follow it by conceding that one of the things in my “either…or” is what happened.
So…let’s say they did not track very well where the bike was, so the school got blown up by accident. I’m saying that still shows a callous disregard for civilian lives.
Military units are used to having to track where an enemy combatant is relative to the map, including moving targets, otherwise they run the risk of blowing up their own soldiers and bases, were it a full on war zone.
Now in this case, it’s not a war zone and the IDF know there are no Israeli soldiers down there. So they didn’t bother to track what they were blowing up. Who cares, right?
You know it by the results. In densely urban situation, the civilian to militant ratio of fatalities in IDF operations is roughly 1:1. That’s about as good as you can get. With best weapons in the world, and a full professed commitment to zero civilian casualties, US/NATO managed to kill more civilians than militants in the Kosovo operation. Including killing Chinese diplomats in their embassy.
And the ceasefire ends. 
Sorry, but why are you accusing me of either? Please refrain from snide comments.
Then perhaps you can explain your assertion that the IRA was tied to the leading political party in Ireland.
An pointed out that was false and I made a suggestion as to why you made such a statement.
BTW, you earlier talked about your ties to the Israeli people and the land but refused to elaborate because you said they’d accuse you of lying.
I won’t, so why do you love the Israelis and what is your tie to them.
Considering the original link to the mortar attack in question has the headline “Northern Ireland police arrest man”, I don’t think it’s exactly vague which country is in reference.
At the time of the attack, the Deputy First Minister was Martin McGuinness, former head of the IRA’s Northern Command. There is no assertion that the government is linked to the IRA. It’s historical fact.
Can I ask why you keep coming back to my previous statement that:
“I like the people of Israel a lot. I could explain my personal reasons for this, but there’s no point. You have to paint me as being biased, because that’s the only way to support your narrative, so any anything I give describing a personal connection to either the Jewish faith or the people of Israel, you will dismiss as a lie.”
Having stated that for reasons I choose not to go into, I like the people of Israel a lot, why do you continue to ask me what those reasons are…in fact, why do you twist that to a rather sneery “why do you love the Israelis”?
Northern Ireland isn’t a country and Sinn Fein was hardly the leading party there. It’s a part of the UK. Furthermore, the IRA never wanted it to be an independent nation. That’s one of the reasons your comparison to Gaza was inaccurate.
It was a An Gadai who brought it up not me.
And no, it wasn’t a “sneery question”?
Why did you bring it up if you’re unwilling to answer?
I’m not sure why you’re being really defensive about it. What are you concerned about?
Perhaps you should find another example and not blatantly inventing them. It’s true that about 300 thousand Turks left Bulgaria in 1989, but neither this was a forced expulsion (granted, the Turks had every reason to leave due to Bulgaria’s assimilationist policy) or anything like the entire 800 thousands.
Probably not very often since by the end of 1989 the rights of the Bulgarians turks had been restored by the new Bulgarian government and between a third and a half returned (and it’s mostly economic reasons which have prevented the return of the rest).
You make at least one. Too bad that you didn’t do it before writing this post.
@Gary Kumquat, I’m not sure if you know this already so apologies if you do but… the ‘IRA’ referred to in that article you posted is a grouping that was only formed in recent years (it’s an amalgam of previously separate groups such as RIRA) and has no ties to Sinn Fein or the 1969-2005 IRA. Martin McGuinness was a senior member of the *Provisional * IRA, who gave up on violence against the state in 1998, hence his participation in government. As others have mentioned Sinn Fein only gained significant votes once the Provisional IRA stopped violence against the British state (there were still a dozen or more murders of informers, rival republicans, innocent civilians who looked at them the wrong way, Ordinary Decent Criminals who muscled in on Republican moneymaking operations), particularly so South of the border where there was little to no violence or support for it.
No but I can recommend you a mediocre one! I think the subject is perhaps too broad to be decently covered in just one book, I’m reading various books at the moment but they are too focussed on individual time periods, subjects e.t.c. They tend to assume you have an overall view of the situation so not everything is conveniently joined up. The mediocre book was one I read a few years ago and is the closest thing I know to being a ‘complete’ account of the situation, or at least the only complete one I’ve seen on the shelves of my city’s library system
It’s written by a pro Israeli author (a British rabbi & professor) and a pro-Palestinian writer (not sure of his background). Imagine in a courtroom you have the defence and the prosecution teams trying their best to prove their side of the argument rather than presenting a balanced & truthful account of what happened. That’s what this book is like. The pro-Israeli writer starts things off with a hundred page defence of Israel, like a lawyer he overwhelmingly presents the positive and only a little bit of the negative. Then the pro Palestinian guy does more or less the same focussing overwhelmingly on the negative sides of Zionism and only a little bit on the negative sides of Palestinian activism. You get the impression that these two authors have had virtually no contact which each other so their chapters have been written in isolation, when what would really interest the reader would be a collaborative debate between the two. Perhaps someone else could suggest a better book, what about Ibn Warraq?
For anyone who is still following this: one of the Hamas leaders admitted in a conference in Turkey that it was the Izzadin Al-Qassam militants (part of Hamas) that kidnapped and killed the three Israeli teenagers, under direction and orders of Hamas. Up till now Hamas was coyly quiet about its involvement in it.
Article in Hebrew:
From CNN:Israeli bombing of a house in Gaza overnight killed three high-ranking members of Hamas’ military wing, the militant group said.
Wow. Just how lucky can those Israelis get? Here they are indiscriminately shelling civilians and just by chance they manage to get those three Hamas bigwigs. Jews have all the luck…
… and now in English
So much for ceasefires.
Even the Israelis have confirmed that this is not the case, but yeah I’m sure this bizarre fantasy of yours is true and Hamas were super-secretly behind it after all. And I’m sure that some bloke supposedly from Hamas really did say this explosive thing which has only been reported in the habitually dishonest Israeli press. Yes sirree.
The news story is allegedly based on a video of the guy saying it. The guy is well known as a Hamas leader, and no-one is denying that.
Whether what he said really amounts to “we did it” I don’t know, but presumably those who speak Arabic do.
Here is the same story from Reuters.
This is a very strange post.
The cite, from July, quotes one Israeli oficial who says it was a Hamas cell but not under direct orders from leadership. It was news then because the storyline on the Israeli side was that it was done under orders from the top.
The current quote is not inconsistent with that, merely confirming that it was indeed perpetrated by members of Hamas, and making no comment on whether or not orders had been given from the top or if their initiative was merely praised after the fact.
Super-secret? Hardly. Some bloke?? Weird.
It does not say it was a Hamas cell, but a cell somewhat affiliated with Hamas. Presumably this is the Kuwasama (numerous spellings seem to be current) clan, a Palestinian clan on the West Bank who sometimes work with Hamas but are also known to be trouble-makers and in no way a part of Hamas. The Israelis currently have their leader in custody, after he quite happily confessed that they were behind it. He initially said Hamas had nothing to do with it, although he changed his story after a few days subject to the tender mercies of his Israeli captors.
That is still where we stand, no reason at all to believe Hamas had anything to do with it, despite this claim. We don’t know if this so-called Hamas leader is such, we don’t know if he said what he’s supposed to have said, we don’t know if he could even know what he claims to know from his perch in Turkey, where he lives. That makes it a pretty feeble claim compared to the established fact that the Kuwasamas were behind it.