Bottle rockets would probably be more dangerous. Your bunch of state-sponsored terrorists killed more Palestinian children in one shelling of a known refuge than these pathetic home-made crap have killed this entire century.
And your terrorists killed more British with one bomb. And your leaders sat by and let many more Palestinians be massacred by Christian Fascists than etc etc.
Like I said. A nation of war criminals fighting a nation of terrorists. No - correct that - ‘beating on’. It’s hardly a fight.
Would you care to toss away any credibility you have remaining?
Ah, I see the answer is “Hell yes!”
More credibility you want to shed in favor of rhetorical horseshit?
The 4th Geneva convention does not specifically authorize ‘terrorism’.
More credibility to lose?
You seem to be powerfully ignorant here. Attacking a valid military target, especially with prior warning given, is not “terrorism”. You seem to be at the stage of your rant when you begin inventing words for your own purposes.
More credibility to burn?
American politicians were at Sabra and Shatilla?
No, eh?
Funny that the more passionate you get, the less your argument even remotely resembles reality.
Well, at least you - unlike Israel - are admitting that Israel is still “the occupying power” in Gaza, and the notion that Gaza is independent and self-governing is bullshit. I appreciate that honesty.
Occupation of another nation without its consent is also an act of war, though.
See above. The obvious apparently eludes you.
Not ‘the’ goal - one side’s goal. You should be aware that each side in a negotiation goes into a negotiation with goals. Isn’t that weird? Don’t they teach these things in the schools?
Guess which side would enter such a negotiation with the goal of ending rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. And which side would enter such a negotiation with the goal of securing open borders.
It would be kinda silly for me to admit to a position I haven’t taken. Since you’re intent on deciding what positions I’m taking, maybe I should just send you my password and let you write my posts for me.
Once again (sigh): entering into a negotiation in the hopes that each side may obtain something it values from the other party is not the same thing as agreeing in advance to give the other party everything it wants. In fact, there’s a rather huge difference.
I realize that the Bush Administration style of ‘negotiation’ - ‘we won’t negotiate with them until after they’ve given in on what, to us, is the major issue’ - has confused a lot of people about what ‘negotiation’ means. But Dopers should have gotten past that confusion awhile back.
All you can say is that “even according to Palestinian sources…the vast majority of casualties” were adults.
I guess that, even though 40% of the Palestinian dead were women and children, the Israeli bombs, bullets, and artillery were so precise in every other respect that practically every adult male killed by the Israelis was a Hamas fighter.
OK, I suppose it’s possible that Israeli ground troops killed hundreds of children and women during this brief war. If that’s the case - if Israeli ground troops are far more likely to kill children than their bombers that can’t distinguish between men, women, and children are - then, frankly, Israeli ground troops strike me as monsters and moral lepers.
I’ve tried to unravel this sentence a few times, and come up short. It’s not like there’s a big payoff at the end, anyway.
Ah, but you are wrong in that. Read this thread and see to what I was replying.
I would argue that an “argument” like this is quite irrelevant:
Please explain why this “argument” uniquely applies to this conflict and not to other conflicts. Was the US in WW2 one of these unnamed “brutal dictatorships” as well?
It seems that your options can be basically summarized as the following:
Do what Hamas wants;
Do nothing; or
Defeat Hamas by magic, possibly involving the Mossad.
I do not agree that the recent military action in Gaza was all-out, no-holds-barred
war. If that happened, Gaza would have been flattened and casualties would be orders of magnitude higher.
Yet again, would it kill you to read something before you post? The 4th GC makes crystal clear, right at the beginning, that its provisions can be applied during peace time and occupation, in particular, can be one of those. Obviously, if it’s occurring during peacetime, it’s not occurring during wartime.
Speaking of you not knowing what the hell you’re talking about, let’s skip to one of your more blatant reveals of your ignorance.
We were discussing the bombing campaign, That ended January 3. More than two weeks ago. Either you’re totally ignorant of what the hell has been going on for about a month now, or you know full well that your cite didn’t address the period under discussion, and tried to sneak it in anyway.
What’s funny is you’re forced to pretend that the period of the entire war is equal to the period ending January 3rd… and that due to that bit of fiction, my factual claim, wasn’t.
Kindly quit weaseling. Just admit to your own position. You have clearly come out in support of (okay, even with your weaseling) “one side’s goal” of arming itself for a genocidal conflict.
Why perform this silly evasion when your own words put paid to your distortions? Why? Seriously.
You, yourself, in your own words said that the goal of the negotiation should be an exchange of a cessation of rocket fire for open borders. Which means that you, again by your own words which you now won’t admit to, said that exchange for an end to Hamas’ terrorism, Israel should offen them open borders and thus the ability to import as much weaponry as they can afford.
Why deny your own words? It’s kinda pointless, don’tcha think?
Well, you could admit to the positions you have taken, just as a start.
Why is it, do you think, that you refuse to admit that you are calling for Hamas to be allowed to arm itself freely if it stops rocketing Israel now?
Why, do you think, you’re denying it when anybody reading along is perfectly capable of seeing that you’re denying what you just wrote?
Why not just own up to what you want? You want Israel to negotiate with Hamas such that the end result is that Hamas can import as many weapons as possible in exchange for stopping rocketing Israel. Sure, it’s a rather disgusting demand but it’s yours, at least. Why hide from your own position?
Would you prefer to retract what you’ve said the end result of negotiation should be, since it would lead to Hamas arming itself to the teeth?
Or would you like to admit what that end result would entail, and you support Hamas being armed to the teeth?
It’s kinda either/or if this is an honest debate.
Not so much if it’s Bullshit Rhetoric on Parade.
Mmmm hmmm.
You are being totally straight forward when you claim that you simply are baffled. Baffled, you insist, at what I’m getting at when I point out that your analogy was shit and had nothing to do with reality. You just don’t understand! Why… your analogy has nothing to do with what’s actually been happening… just what am I getting at? It’s so hard to figure out!
You don’t understand the significance of the fact that you deliberately distorted what actually happened in exchange for an obviously fallacious analogy. You are confused by my statement that a correct analogy would have to include a parallel to what’s actually happened.
Sure. You just don’t understand.
Just to drive the point home, so maybe you can understand.
Try real hard, and see if you can spot the differences.
If required, use this as a primer.
I’m sure in time you’ll be able to ‘unravel’ what makes an analogy accurate.
Your analogy: one single border guard accidentally kills another nation’s border guard.
Gaza: the elected government in Gaza deliberately launched numerous rockets at civilian targets.
Your analogy: an isolated incident transpired without government sanction.
Gaza: a pattern of events was carried out due to the government’s sanctioned actions themselves.
Your analogy: after that single, accidental, non-government sponsored event, bombing commenced.
Gaza: after a pattern of deliberate, government sponsored events and a deliberate rejection of continuing the ceasefire by Hamas, bombing commenced.
Your analogy: the US government, whose policy it is not to attack the soldiers of foreign nations without just cause, would not have condoned the attack.
Gaza: Hamas, by their own press releases, explicitly stated that they would condone rocket attacks from Gaza and would deliberately not try to stop them.
See if you can try to unravel why your analogy was a poor one.
And while I’m at it… again, learn what the hell you’re talking about before you spout off. Is that really so damn hard? Is it a burden you’re unable to bear, or us unwilling? Hamas doesn’t self-govern Gaza? Bullshit.
Are you honestly going to claim now that it’s Israel that’s behind Hamas’ drive to institute Sharia in Gaza? Israel runs the courts in Gaza? Israel was pushing Fatah members off of roof tops and kneecapping them? Israel runs the Hamas police force in Gaza? :rolleyes:
Really, have you considered finding out what you’re talking about before you make claims about situations you are ignorant of?
Why should he be? You can’t “unravel” where the particulars contradict your story, you can’t puzzle out why something that ended January 3rd isn’t still ongoing, you claim that you don’t realize that saying negotiations should grant Hamas the right to import whatever it wanted across its borders in exchange for stopping the rocket fire now means that Hamas would import weapons. Etc, etc, etc.
You don’t seem to care much about the particulars.
a fabrication of the bombing campaign which he still hasn’t admitted to
a call for a ground invasion, which is invariably more punishing and brutal than surgical strikes (and we can all figure out whether or not he’d actually support such a ground invasion)
magic Mossad ninjas
Bullshit.
He suggested that without Israeli troops controlling Gaza, that the Mossad should be able to accomplish what it manifestly could not while IDF soldiers did control Gaza.
Magic by any other name.
Malthus is spot on.
Wrong yet again.
He stated, quite clearly, that the alternative to his fictional bombing, fictional better-than-bombing invasion or magic Mossad ninjas was:
Unless of course it’s your claim that he was deliberately distorting the issue and deliberately trying to muddy the waters by coming up with a hypothetical of the ‘only’ thing Malthus accepts, while knowing that it had no actual bearing to what Israel was actually doing and that Malthus has argued for the right of Israeli self defense and thus, what’s actually happening? You’re claiming that he deliberately substituted his fiction for what was actually happening, and doesn’t feel prepared to argue for his bombast about the situation being an all-out war?
I can kinda see that and if that’s your argument, you may be right.
You haven’t bothered to link. I have non-followed your non-link. My non-bad.
Once again, the fact that the GC4 provides for occupation during peace or war doesn’t address the issue of whether hostile occupation is an act of war. Which it is.
At least in one instance you have a grasp of the obvious.
You may note - or at least you would, if you bothered to read what I posted - is that I allowed for both possibilities: that the current numbers primarily reflected the bombing campaign, or that they didn’t.
Take your pick, but don’t argue that I assumed one or the other.
Please to quote the exact words that demonstrate such support.
Not to mention, what’s this about genocide? Israelis are killing far more Palestinians than vice versa, over timeframes short and long. So Israel’s also guilty of genocide, by your measure. So quit whining ‘genocide’ unless we’ve got some special rules bullshit going on that anytime a Jew is killed, it’s genocide.
Well, duuuuuuuuuuuuuh. Cessation of rocket fire is what Israel wants, and open borders are what the Gazans want. If they can both get what they want, then everyone will be happy, except you I’m sure.
No, you can’t get there from here. There’s all sorts of deals that could be negotiated. Israel and Hamas could negotiate a deal that allowed for largely open borders, but restricted the sorts of armaments that Hamas could import, and provided means by which Israel could ascertain whether Hamas was upholding its end of the bargain.
Again, duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh.
Advocating negotiations along a particular line is not the same thing as advocating a particular outcome to those negotiations.
Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, cubed.
It is. What’s even more pointless is this banging-my-head-against-the-wall process of explaining to you what I’ve actually said.
I must conclude that you are willfully and deliberately misinterpreting my words. I would think I’d be the ultimate arbiter of the positions I presently hold.
While we can disagree about the meaning of what I said at one point, it stands to reason that if you think I misstated myself once, but I’ve been clear and consistent since then about the position I’m holding, then you should at least recognize that latter fact: *I am not taking the position you claim I’m taking. *
Your insistence that your misinterpretation of a particular post is my position, whether I like it or not, is not only absurd, but a flagrantly dishonest debating tactic.
Boy howdy, the effect of magic went downhill fast there. First, my proposals would have magically resulted in NO civilian casualties. (My magic ain’t that good. Sorry. :)) But suddenly, any different result with respect to civilian casualties would be magical.
Dude, random chance could get you a different result.
I don’t think I’m gonna waste my time debating someone who can’t tell the difference between magic and random chance, let alone someone who thinks one less civilian death would have required magic to achieve.
The Magical Mystery Tour is waiting to take you away…
Correct me here if I’m wrong but that population isn’t distributed evenly. Looking at a satellite image of the Gaza Strip on Google Maps (“Gaza, Israel”), there’s a fair amount of open land from which Hamas could operate if they really wanted to. I’m sure that land belongs to someone but so do the homes in Gaza that were destroyed.
It’s crowded in Gaza but the entire region isn’t packed like downtown Tokyo. There’s places to fire rockets from and hide your weapons in besides the center of Gaza city.
Just to remind everyone, the op of this thread wasn’t what happened or who is evil or a variety of other stan dard issue arguments. It was what happens each player may or may not do next and what the likely outcomes of those actions will.
Any one with some thoughts about this as Israel’s pull-out is in progress?
“try to negotiate” =/= “give them what they want”.
Yet another straw man. Nowhere did RTFirefly ever imply that these actions would result in no civilian casualties, nor did he ever argue that Israel’s actions need to result in zero civilian casualties.
You’re just wrong on this. Targeted bombings against launch sites surely would have had a smaller impact on the civilian population than the full scale bombing campaign we saw. Just a ground invasion would have likely as well, and Mossad actions would certainly.
You added “no holds barred”, which changes the statement. RTFirefly’s phrasing was clumsy. The context of his statement clearly indicates that by total war, he means targeting any military target no matter what the resulting civilian casualties would be. That’s different than a traditional definition of “total war” i.e. indescriminate attacks on civilian population, among other things. Adding “no holds barred” changes “total war” to the traditional meaning, which is clearly not what RTFirefly meant.
For what it’s worth, you do have my apologies. I simply can’t stand the slimy debating tactics that some folks here are using. I’m going to hammer home that point one last time, and then let it drop. I just wish that the mods would do something about people who come to a debate, adopt inflammatory positions but don’t care enough to figure out what the facts are before they stir the debate up with their bombast.
Some of us still care about fighting ignorance rather than using it as a cudgel.
Bah.
You’re 100% correct. RTF hasn’t done his research before he’s made claims.
Holy shit, you’re serious, aren’t you?
You expect me to do all the background reading for you in a debate? That in a discussion on the international laws of war, it’s not your job to figure out what the fuck you’re talking about, but mine to take the bait and provide you link after link after you’ve decided to adopt a position you know nothing about?
I know you’re really important and people simply must read your text, but seriously, considering learning what the fuck you’re talking about before you make claims. Eh?
You’re really going to argue now that if the GC makes clear that occupation isn’t an act of war, that maybe it doesn’t make clear that occupation isn’t an act of war?
Are you for real?
I may note that you’re not exactly being accurate.
Or I could note that your evasions are so full of shit, brazenly delivered, that it’s unbelievable.
You called the facts of the matter non-facts or, smarmily “finn-facts” because you weren’t sure if you were even right? Because “both possibilities” were equally plausible? And when faced with the fact that ground invasions always messy, let your bias spew forth and declared that since the IDF wasn’t magic and had to actually fight through the streets instead of pinpointing known Hamas sites, that they were “monsters and moral lepers”.
Ooooh, nice bait, shiny!
Please look at the multiple times I pointed out where you did just that. Hint, it has to do with ‘open borders’.
But you knew that already, eh?
Wait, let me guess… yet another thread about Hamas, and you still have no fucking clue what Hamas stands for, believes in, or what their charter says, do you? And let me guess, it’s my fault for not spoonfeeding you these facts after you decided to adopt a position?
Am I close?
This is probably the most retarded argument I’ve seen you make. And that’s saying a whole hell of a lot.
To begin with, the argument that because more people on one side or another are killed, it’s genocide? That’s a stupid argument. You also know full well that wasn’t what I was arguing. Funny, then, that you won’t admit your own positions and insist on deliberately making up false ones and pretending that I hold them.
Anyways, moving along to the other idiocy contained in that argument, the fact of Hamas being genocidal is due to their own incitement to genocide, which is well documented.
And, let me guess, which you are totally ignorant of but you’ve decided to debate anyways?
So your goal isn’t fighting your ignorance, or an honest debate, or an analysis of the facts since you refuse to even learn the facts before you make your claims. What, then, is your goal?
Do I really need to ask?
Yes, the Israelis would certainly be happy when Hamas started importing all the weaponry it could.
I take it you’re going to feign ignorance, yet again, at where you’ve said that Hamas should have open borders again?
Is it hard to walk backwards quite so quickly?
So Hamas would have open borders, except they’d be restricted. And they’d be open, except Israel could monitor them.
Your evasion is beneath even the quality of your argument so far.
Stop weaseling. Simply admit that your demand for the end result of negoiation was full of shit, and you now retract your silly suggestion that Hamas should have open borders, and what you really meant was that it should have increased imports while still being monitored and restricted by Israel.
Why is admitting this so hard? Why keep trying to deny what you yourself have said?
Do you think your posts vanish, or something?
Right. Right, you’re advocating that they negotiate with the goal of open borders being one of the final results, but you’re not that it would be the outcome. Nopers, not you.
And saying that should be the outcome doesn’t mean, at all, that you’re advocating for it.
Naw. Not you.
Why, people all the time say that negotiations should have a certain goal without meaning that should be the goal of the negotiations.
I sure do believe you.
Your own words show otherwise.
Sucks that you can’t change what you’ve already said, eh? RTF has always been at war with Eurasia, er, for negotiations that result in open borders for Hamas, er not for negotiations that result in open borders for Hamas, er, for negotiations that result in monitored and restricted borders for Hams, er, for not for negotiations that result in monitored and restircted borders for Hamas. Always.
Damn those Eurasians!
Like the regulated, monitored “open” borders?
Oh, oh, I know, that the goal of negotiations should be those open borders, but that’s not what you’re saying should happen?
Wait, I’ve got it now, that Hamas calling for the extermination of the Jews isn’t genocidal but Israel killing more Palestinians than the number of Israelis who are killed is?
Good use of Turnspeak, though.
When your own words put paid to your distortions, showing how you yourself are debating, pretend that I’m the one debating “dishonestly”. Still haven’t “unraveled” why your analogy sucks, eh? Being unable to admit that a horrible analogy doesn’t fly. In fact, acting as if you’re baffled by why someone would say why it doesn’ work and being unwilling to retract when it’s shown just how inaccurate it is, that’s honest debate. Right?
Hamas doesn’t want open borders so it can import weapons?
Tell me another one.
You mean the one that I’ve already shown overwhelmingly effected militants rather than civilians? You mean the targeted bombing campaign while you’re fabricating as a “full scale” campaign?
Whereas “yeilding the point” = "give them what they want.
So them, what exactly was his point? After all, what he CLAIMS are “alternatives” is merely what Israel actually did, otherwise - a bombardment, a ground invasion, and use intelligence services.
Here’s that magic anti-Hamas pixie dust again. Like pulling a Stalingrad in Gaza would somehow produce less casualties than what we have seen; or like Mossad agents could, magically, infiltrate Gaza and assasinate hundreds of militants simultaneously.
Hint: the current action in Gaza was by no means “a full scale bombing campaign”. That would look more like Dresden in WW2.
Now that is some classic weasling. His “all out war” means something other than “all out war”? Okay.
If you read the statement carefully, the “point” RTFirefly was referring to was that blockading Gaza is an act of war. It is clear from his statement that he suggested Israel should negotiate with Hamas on opening the borders. There is no way an honest reading of his post results in the conclusion that he wanted Israel to give Hamas what they want.
I think his, blatantly obvious, point is that there were alternatives available to Israel that would have resulted in reduced civilian causalities. And to reiterate the point, nowhere did he suggest using magic.
What in the world are you talking about?
Way to go Captain Semantic, you’ve caught RTFirefly in unclear phrasing. Aiieeeeee! The debate is yours.
For something “blatantly obvious”, so far no-one has come up with concrete examples that do not rely on some magical ability to kill Hamas fighters without killing just as many of the civilians they hide among as we have actually seen.
I suggest that they have not because there are no such methods. Certainly “targeted bombardment”, “ground assault” and “using Mossad” aren’t - these are in fact just what Israel has done - used ground forces selectively, used targeted bombardment, and used its intelligence services.
Ground assault in Gaza. Using Mossad agents. What do you think?
There are more gracious ways of saying “you are right on this”.
His “all out war” means something other than “all out war”? Okay.