On Jan 3, 2009, at 11:30 PM, Chuck Bennett wrote: > > On Jan 3, 2009, at 9:46 PM, Chris Gehlker wrote: > >> >> On Jan 3, 2009, at 4:13 PM, Chuck Bennett wrote: >> >>> After Israel's half hearted attempt last time, and the internal >>> political fallout of it this is about to get ugly and the Gazans are >>> going to suffer the retribution they have brought on themselves. >> >> So which is it? Have the Gazans "brought on themselves" or are they >> the victims of Hamas who "'wants' their own civilians to be killed >> for >> the political gains"? > > Both. They voted for and tolerate the current situation.
What a silly notion. You rightly reject the idea of group responsibility when some left winger claims all Americans or all the ones who voted for Bush at any rate are personally responsible for Abu Ghraib. Yet you want to apply it here? Palestinians who are being killed include children, Fatah supporters, and those who only supported Hamas because they were marginally competent and less corrupt. They also include a large number who blame all Israelis for past harm done to them and their loved ones because they buy into this group responsibility nonsense. > > > Hamas, does some good works and yet puts the people it claims to > represent in harms way. > > >> >>> >>> >>> As a human being I hate the loss of lives about to happen. >>> >>> As a warrior I understand that when you have an enemy that tries >>> every >>> day to kill your children, while running and hiding from you amongst >>> his own children and neighbors, then he sows their destruction along >>> with his own and Israel has every right to fire back at any location >>> firing at them, regardless of where it's coming from. >> >> This makes it sound as if Israel is limiting its strikes to purely >> military targets and seeks only military objectives. In fact, the >> Israelis don't pretend this is the case. Raanan Gissin says that "80% >> of military attacks are determined by psychological effects". Israel >> is clearly using 'violence and intimidation in pursuit of political >> aims.' which is the definition of "terrorism." > > > They have no obligation other than to not *directly* target civilians. Legally maybe. Morally, if somebody throws a rock at me or even my child from an apartment building and I respond by spraying the apartment building with automatic weapons fire then I'm worse than the rock thrower. Israel is spouting the 'ethics' of a gangster engaged in a drive by. > > >> >> >> Don't get me wrong. It is clearly better to try to intimidate the >> people of Gaza into abandoning their support for Hamas than to >> carpet >> bomb Gaza. If fact, if I thought there was a reasonable chance that >> their tactics would persuade the Gazans to reject Hamas, accept >> Israel's right to exist and abandon the use of missiles and suicide >> bombing against civilian targets in Israel, I would applaud Israel's >> determination to fight terrorism with terrorism. Likewise if I >> thought >> that Hamas could force Israel to abandon the blockade, tear down the >> walls and accept the Palestinians as full citizens, I would cheer >> Hamas on. >>> >>> >>> Hammas "wants" their own civilians to be killed for the political >>> gains and that is the reason they fire from schools and mosques. >> >> And Israel does precisely what Hamas wants. How dumb is that? > > Because sitting idly while rockets fall on their citizens every day, > "cease fire" or not > is also unacceptable. IIRC, there were two civilian casualties during all the time that Hamas fired rockets unopposed from Gaza. There have been many more since because Hamas has escalated its attacks. It's a false dichotomy to argue that Israel's only choices were to 'sit idly' or to follow their current course. >> >> Do you really think legality is the issue here? Lots of stupid things >> are legal. > IDF has gotten smarter, by starting their own youtube channel showing > what they are targeting. > > Seeing video of a mortor in the shadow of a school is powerful. Actually this is only effective on people who were prejudiced against Arabs in the first place. Rational people will notice that Israel has targeted mosques, colleges and medical centers as well as military targets. Israel is trying to achieve regime change and they admit it as often as they deny it. When they do deny it, most people realize they are lying. -- Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. -Frank William Leahy, football coach (1908-1973) _______________________________________________ OSX-Nutters mailing list | [email protected] http://lists.tit-wank.com/mailman/listinfo/osx-nutters List hosted at http://cat5.org/
