It is getting pretty old hearing both sides squeal about genocide, war crimes and terrorism. While there are certainly innocent civilians on both sides of the conflict who would gladly make all the concessions needed to have a peaceful and prosperous coexistence, the political factions that are in control and have significant political support among the respective populations is just using cries of war crimes, etc. to make their holy war against the other side palatable to their supporters at home and abroad.
Neither side of this conflict gives two sh#ts about international law or human rights. Those are just the laws of man and they do not apply when you are fighting a holy war for your god. The crazy settlers and IDF on the West Bank do not need judicial process when they evict Palestinians and burn down their home because they are taking land back that was given to them by their god. And when Hamas takes children hostage and slaughters hundreds of civilians, they are fighting a jihad for Islam because their god (and his prophet) said that the 14 acres in Jerusalem are where they must have a mosque in order to have heaven on Earth.
As long as people try to pick who is right and just in this conflict, Israel and Hamas will just keep killing each other and the conflict will never end. It is time to stop pretending that there is a just and right party in this conflict and to understand that these are just religious zealots who will kill each other and try to get every other country to kill each other because their god said it was what they had to do. This conflict will only end when enough international actors are willing to stand in the middle and call out both sides for their idiotic holy war against each other.
There is some sense in your post.
Still, I am not at all convinced that this has anything to do with any gods. From everything that I have seen here and elsewhere, very few religious leaders are religious themselves. That is, very few believe that their holy books are in any way holy or even that there is such a thing as God.
This entire situation is most clearly seen as being between leaders who value their own power above anything else and who simply use religion to get the masses to do their dirty work for them.
In any event, the notion that "As long as people try to pick who is right and just in this conflict, Israel and Hamas will just keep killing each other and the conflict will never end." does not ring very true to me. It may be frustrating to some that "people try to pick who is right and just in this conflict." And having people drop such notions may well induce positive emotions within some minds. It is nonetheless not at all obvious how the act of people dropping such notions will in any way lead to the end of this conflict.
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Europe is over. Mass immigration from Islamic nations is pure suicide.
Individuals leave nation X to move to nation Y: "Please, please let us into your society. We wish to escape the hell of X to be a part of Y."
Once generously allowed into Y: "We hate Y. We despise all that Y stands for. Y is a miserable cancer. We will make sure that Y will become like X once we have the power to do so."
Politicians of Y: Best way to address this issue is to increase the number of people from X.
Ten years later: Politicians from Y are utterly baffled why their societies are failing. Good night the West. You had a really good run.
Europe is over. Mass immigration from Islamic nations is pure suicide.
Individuals leave nation X to move to nation Y: "Please, please let us into your society. We wish to escape the hell of X to be a part of Y."
Once generously allowed into Y: "We hate Y. We despise all that Y stands for. Y is a miserable cancer. We will make sure that Y will become like X once we have the power to do so."
Politicians of Y: Best way to address this issue is to increase the number of people from X.
Ten years later: Politicians from Y are utterly baffled why their societies are failing. Good night the West. You had a really good run.
You forgot the part where Nation Y's govt wrecked life for people in Nation X, causing all these people to leave Nation X.
There are 50 Islamic countries and they all mostly 3rd world dictatorships that don't produce or make anything. They provide ZERO to society at large except that maybe they sit on some energy supplies (That they need western nations to dig up and refine).
There is just ONE Jewish country. Dozens of U.S. high-tech companies, like IBM, Intel, Google and Microsoft, have flocked to Israel to take advantage of its innovative spirit and robust economy.
Israeli pharmaceutical firm Teva, the world’s largest producer of generic drugs, employs tens of thousands of Americans.
Most United States high-tech companies have branches and laboratories in Israel. Next to the U.S. itself and Canada, Israel has more companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges than any other country.
They have regular elections. Israel is democratic and provides equal rights for it's Arab citizens and women.
In short, we need more Israels and less 3rd world Islamic slums.
There are 50 Islamic countries and they all mostly 3rd world dictatorships that don't produce or make anything. They provide ZERO to society at large except that maybe they sit on some energy supplies (That they need western nations to dig up and refine).
There is just ONE Jewish country. Dozens of U.S. high-tech companies, like IBM, Intel, Google and Microsoft, have flocked to Israel to take advantage of its innovative spirit and robust economy.
Israeli pharmaceutical firm Teva, the world’s largest producer of generic drugs, employs tens of thousands of Americans.
Most United States high-tech companies have branches and laboratories in Israel. Next to the U.S. itself and Canada, Israel has more companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges than any other country.
They have regular elections. Israel is democratic and provides equal rights for it's Arab citizens and women.
In short, we need more Israels and less 3rd world Islamic slums.
The major industries of Gaza are cement and mother-of-pearl souvenirs. Yes, mother-of-pearl souvenirs.
As per Israel:
The fastest growth rates (averaging 8 percent annually in recent years) are to be found in the hi-tech sectors. These sectors are skill and capital intensive and require sophisticated production techniques, as well as considerable investment in research and development, on which 4.9 percent of Israel's GDP is spent - the highest among OECD countries. The quality of this R&D in Israel is ranked, according to U.N. experts, among the first 10 in the world. A successful contribution to all these is due to academic research institutes, which provide much of the basic R&D, and venture capital.
Those who advocate the ending of the “occupation” do so either out of ignorance or because they have a death wish for Israel.
Again, there are 50 Islamic countries in the world. 50!!
The Palestinians can go to any of these third world slum countries but choose to migrate to Europe because the standard of living is much better in non-islamic countries. (obviously).
There is only on advanced democracy in the Middle East. There is only one economic powerhouse in the Middle East. Only one country in the Middle East that has regular elections and where woman and minorities are treated equally.
Just one.
So why does the American left side with these non democratic, run down, civil rights crushing countries?
This is correct. As much as Israel endures attacks and threats of Jewish elimination, people in the west can at least see the death and destruction they have also inflicted. It's not surprising that Americans are just starting to really wake up to this.
Ginamator - IF someone comes after me and beheads and burns alive people I know you can be damn sure I am coming back IN SPADES. Would you not? There was a captured Hamas militant talking how they had become savages - and talked of beheading children and burning alive others - and I could not even read the rest of what he said because it was "too graphic!" He was Hamas and said Hamas were animals.
The question is come at whom in spades?
If someone came after you and beheaded and burned people alive that you know, you'd clearly want to end those individuals. The question is, what is your threshold for killing innocents in the process of getting revenge? Is it 1 civilian for each Hamas militant, or is it 5:1, 10:1, 100:1?
If you keep seeing them all as the same thing, then your answer has to be genocide of 2.3 million people. If you can possibly acknowledge that there are innocents in the mix and are still fine dropping bombs on them, then you are perhaps not much better than those bad guys who also didn't give a cr@p who they killed.
I've been seeing all sorts of deranged justifications for killing of civilians, such as that Palestinians put Hamas in power therefore they are responsible, their country is a $hithole anyway, and that this is the only way for Israel to win. Talk about a wrecked moral compass.
Both NYT and BBC have put out apologies of some sort for their poor journalism in the hours after the hospital explosion. Both say they took the word of Hamas and that was an error. Real news orgs do try to get it right. But they are human beings and make mistakes. Right wing news doesn't even try to get it right.
NYT: The Times’s initial accounts attributed the claim of Israeli responsibility to Palestinian officials, and noted that the Israeli military said it was investigating the blast. However, the early versions of the coverage — and the prominence it received in a headline, news alert and social media channels — relied too heavily on claims by Hamas, and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified. The report left readers with an incorrect impression about what was known and how credible the account was. The Times continued to update its coverage as more information became available, reporting the disputed claims of responsibility and noting that the death toll might be lower than initially reported. Within two hours, the headline and other text at the top of the website reflected the scope of the explosion and the dispute over responsibility. Given the sensitive nature of the news during a widening conflict, and the prominent promotion it received, Times editors should have taken more care with the initial presentation, and been more explicit about what information could be verified. Newsroom leaders continue to examine procedures around the biggest breaking news events — including for the use of the largest headlines in the digital report — to determine what additional safeguards may be warranted. Share full article
hey louise just make sure you know that both the BBC and NYT have issued apologies for their coverage of the explosion and their initial blaming Israel. I know you eagerly want to get this right so I want you to know. You know you looked like an idiot when saying it was ridiculous to think a bad rocket could have done the damage so you are right to want to do a post mortem on your BS meter's failure.
This post was edited 31 seconds after it was posted.
hey louise just make sure you know that both the BBC and NYT have issued apologies for their coverage of the explosion and their initial blaming Israel. I know you eagerly want to get this right so I want you to know. You know you looked like an idiot when saying it was ridiculous to think a bad rocket could have done the damage so you are right to want to do a post mortem on your BS meter's failure.
Are Hamas the stupidest people ever? They are not taking college courses. They are not peddling their wares out on the streets of Gaza. The are not performing charitable work. No, they spend their entire day just readying to slaughter innocents. That is all they do - prepare to slaughter women and children. Years and years they prepare for this. And after all these years they are killing themselves? They really don't know how to fire missiles? Are they really killing themselves because they are too dumb to know how to fire missiles. Their whole life the last 10 years was bringing catastrophe to the Israeli people but instead they are killing their own people. What a clown show.
hey louise just make sure you know that both the BBC and NYT have issued apologies for their coverage of the explosion and their initial blaming Israel. I know you eagerly want to get this right so I want you to know. You know you looked like an idiot when saying it was ridiculous to think a bad rocket could have done the damage so you are right to want to do a post mortem on your BS meter's failure.
Are Hamas the stupidest people ever? They are not taking college courses. They are not peddling their wares out on the streets of Gaza. The are not performing charitable work. No, they spend their entire day just readying to slaughter innocents. That is all they do - prepare to slaughter women and children. Years and years they prepare for this. And after all these years they are killing themselves? They really don't know how to fire missiles? Are they really killing themselves because they are too dumb to know how to fire missiles. Their whole life the last 10 years was bringing catastrophe to the Israeli people but instead they are killing their own people. What a clown show.
The last people I have seen as inept as Hamas was the Three Stooges and that was scripted.
Your Hamas buddies are responsible for the every death in Gaza.
Stop saying dumb sh!t.
Both sides are responsible for the murders they commit.
No offense but you're not clever enough to understand what is or isn't dumb.
Claiming moral equivalence between Hamas directly targeting civilians and Israel killing civilians as a by product of targeting Hamas is absolutely disgusting.
If Hamas had Israel's military capabilities there would literally be MILLIONS of dead Israelis.
No rational human being denies this.
Claiming Hamas only behaves the way they do because of years of Israeli oppression is also complete and utter BS that no rational human being believes. The Arabs have been trying to kill all of the Jews for over a century now.
Both sides are responsible for the murders they commit.
No offense but you're not clever enough to understand what is or isn't dumb.
Claiming moral equivalence between Hamas directly targeting civilians and Israel killing civilians as a by product of targeting Hamas is absolutely disgusting.
If Hamas had Israel's military capabilities there would literally be MILLIONS of dead Israelis.
No rational human being denies this.
Claiming Hamas only behaves the way they do because of years of Israeli oppression is also complete and utter BS that no rational human being believes. The Arabs have been trying to kill all of the Jews for over a century now.
The definition of "collateral damage" in the Middle East is so broad as to make the dividing line between targeting civilians and civilians killed in military operations to be almost non-existent. Russia in Grozny. Syria in Aleppo. The US drone operations against ISIS and Al Qaeda. The general rule is that you just blow up everything in your way and as long as you say you were targeting a terrorist, you are beyond reproach. Israel's approach in Gaza is basically the same. But the reality is that the only way to drive out a militia force that readily slips back and forth between a fighting force and the civilian population is by blowing up everywhere they could slip back into the civilian population. So, for Israel, they just see themselves as doing what everyone else has done in the Middle East. And they actually have a point.
If the Arabs really wanted to kill the Jews, they would have done it by now. Israel is a country of about 10 million people. If you take six of the largest Muslim nations in the Middle East, you have a total population of over 300 million. The Saudis and Egyptians are armed to the tooth with US advanced weapons. Iran and the Emirates have plenty of fire power. The reason this has not happened is of course in part due to Israel having he bomb and security guarantees from the West. But more than that is the fact that Muslims hate each other (Sunni/Shia schism) and hate the Palestinians as much as they hate Israel.
Just look at countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The Saudis spend more getting a single player for LIV golf than they do on humanitarian aid for the Palestinians. Egypt has kept its border with Gaza about as tightly controlled as Israel has with its border with Gaza. Egypt wants nothing to do with Palestinian refugees as do most of the Muslim nations in the Middle East. Many more Arabs have died in wars fighting each other (Iran/Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya civil wars, etc.) than have in wars with Israel.
