Let's talk about Israel and Palestine...

[Cyclefrance]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Don't you hate when people do that?

Hard to imagine that someone really would

[Cyclefrance]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I thought about your earlier post and there is one more item I must take issue with. You believe that Israel would strategically bomb crop fields. This idea is ridiculous on its face for no other reason than no army in the world would waste expensive munitions bombing dirt. But what you should also know is that Israel provides almost all the fresh water for Gaza, and if it doesn't want Gaza growing crops, or if it wants to maximize suffering, it can merely shut the water off for a while.

If you saw images or video of dirt being bombed I will guarantee you that the rockets that rained down on the crops were fired by Hamas. Like all modern militaries, Israel actually tries to aim their bombs. Hamas points in the general direction and lets Allah do the aiming part. Their bombs often hit their own territory and/or citizens.

It does seem ridiculous but maybe that's a reason that no one will beleve it happened when it did. It looks like I got it wrong that tunnels could be under farmland. I read today that the tunnel network is far more extensive than first believed, and this article, albeit from Palestinian sources seems to bear that out. So there would be justification in Israel's eyes to destroy the land under which the tunnels ran. The first article in which I found this information about farms and orchards being decimated was quite long and on a Palestinian news site, so there's always the possibility it was embellished. I've extracted the relevant text:

Qte
I’m writing now from my home, but I still feel dizzy from shock and nauseated by the sights and smells on my visit to Khan Younis and Khuza’a.
Yesterday I decided to use the opportunity of the ceasefire to visit my family in Khan Younis. I especially wanted to see my sister who had open heart surgery before Israel’s assault. I hadn’t seen her for 36 days. I’m lucky that I have enough fuel in my car to drive 24 kilometers (15 miles) so I struck out towards the south.
I drove down Salaheddin Road and passed rubble from mosques, houses, and factories. Some buildings were destroyed completely and some partially. Later on in my drive, I saw dozens of big trees uprooted and smashed, fruit trees destroyed and farms and gardens decimated and ruined. The Israeli bombs were aimed to destroy the infrastructure, to destroy Gaza’s economy. Even the main cookie factory was targeted and destroyed.
I passed UN trucks distributing food to people in long lines. This siege and assault by the Israelis has made everyone in the Gaza Strip live as a refugee, missing basic needs and struggling to survive.
As we set out to the east, my niece pointed out the devastation, “You can see where the Israeli tanks were—here and here.” We continued toward Khuza’a. It was a model Palestinian agricultural village with open fields and green everywhere. They had fruit trees and vegetable fields. But there was nothing left of the village I remembered.
The smell and the sights we saw were shocking. The moment we parked and I got out, a very strange smell hit us—the smell of dead bodies. That smell will never leave me; it is still stuck in my nose. We saw totally flattened houses and other houses partially destroyed. It reminded me of pictures from war-torn areas where years of fighting erased a village. This Israeli assault has hit the Palestinian people more deeply than the last two military attacks. This one is even more deadly and destructive. Whole neighborhoods and villages have been wiped off the map.
I ask myself now how can we start again?

By Dr. Mona El-Farra, Director of Gaza Projects, who is a physician by training and a human rights and women’s rights activist by practice in the occupied Gaza Strip.


Unqte

I looked for other reports of farmland destruction resulting from the current conflict and found a quite a few - some from Palestinian sources and others with UN tags being more factual with rather short references.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Cyclefrance

Hard to imagine that someone really would

Heh heh heh, When I read, " I'm not sure what would be achieved by countering every point really...", I couldn't resist.

Jimmy Carter and the Camp David Accords, told us peace is here. After 13 years of post 9-11 carrying the load, (we carried the tent, allies carried the stakes), and hearing regular declarations of victory & peace being just around the corner, we're jaded. Many of us don't believe peace in the middle east is possible. At any cost. By anyone's intervention.

In the past, threads of this nature sparked a flurry of activity. But now I, for one, am sick of hearing solutions that evaporate faster than alcohol. Sick of hearing just a few billion dollars more. Sick of endless lies on all sides.

If I was diligently sifting through the monsoon of information/opinion available, I could probably figure out the truth. Then what? What do I do with it? Can't give it away because nobody has room for it without throwing away their own truth.

[Undertoad]

The Israeli bombs were aimed to destroy the infrastructure, to destroy Gaza’s economy.

If you want to destroy the infrastructure, destroy an economy, bomb bridges, roads, oil/gas terminals, power plants and loading docks.

The one thing you don't bomb, if you want to destroy infrastructure and an economy, is farms. You can't destroy dirt by bombing it. The next day it's still dirt. (And now, it's pre-tilled!) (that is a joke)

If you want to destroy farms, why not use salt? It's very available in the area (the Dead Sea is right there) and utterly cheap. I wager $1,000 of salt would ruin more farmland, for far longer, than $1 million in modern bombs.

[Big Sarge]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

If you want to destroy the infrastructure, destroy an economy, bomb bridges, roads, oil/gas terminals, power plants and loading docks.

The one thing you don't bomb, if you want to destroy infrastructure and an economy, is farms. You can't destroy dirt by bombing it. The next day it's still dirt. (And now, it's pre-tilled!) (that is a joke)

If you want to destroy farms, why not use salt? It's very available in the area (the Dead Sea is right there) and utterly cheap. I wager $1,000 of salt would ruin more farmland, for far longer, than $1 million in modern bombs.

The Jews already did that at Shechem. Doesn't work well unless you kill everyone first.

[Undertoad]

I haven't posted any of the many, many stories about "collaborators" being executed by Hamas because they have all been in Israeli newspapers. Finally it is hitting the Times. This story is the tip of the iceberg. It says 18 is the largest number. Israeli newspapers are reporting hundreds, including many who worked on digging tunnels, since once they worked on tunnels they knew where the tunnels were, can't have that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/23/wo...rael-gaza.html

Palestinians Suspected of Collaborating With Israel Are Executed in Gaza Strip

As many as 18 Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel were fatally shot in public on Friday, according to local news agencies and two witnesses, the largest number of such executions reported since the onset of this summer’s battle between Israel and militants in the Gaza Strip.

Journalists, human-rights workers and a witness said that either 9 or 11 people, including two women, were killed Friday morning in a public park and a bus stop near Al Azhar University in Gaza City, not far from the central prison where they were believed to have been held. Seven others, their hands tied behind their backs, were killed outside Al Omri mosque downtown after noon prayer, another witness said, leaving bloodstains on the ground that bystanders photographed with their mobile phones.

[DanaC]

Were you aware of this? The dying Gazans, they're almost all young males. Which can't possibly be true if you believe Israel is targeting, like, everyone:

Justbeen listening to a piece on the radio about this. Turns out it is very common in wars for civilian deaths to be predominantly male - for a variety of reasons. For instance - it tends to be the men who venture out to look for food/survivors, to risk going back home to get things etc. Within safe areas, women and children tend to be further in and men are often at the outskirts, in the corridors and so on - so a hit on a refugee safe area, like a hospital is likely to kill far more men than women. Men are much easier to mistake for fighters when they not. Women are generally assumed not to be fighters. A rocket hitting a cafe or bar is more likely to kill men that women, particularly in a muslim country - where men tend to be out more than women. The emergency services in a muslim country in particular are more likely to be male than female.

No doubt some of those young men weren't civilians. But - many of them wil have been and this is to be expected in any large number of civilian casualities.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Were you aware of this? The dying Gazans, they're almost all young males. Which can't possibly be true if you believe Israel is targeting, like, everyone:

http://time.com/3035937/gaza-israel-...an-casualties/

Reported by an American non-Jew, if that's something you think is important.

I read your link. I found no support for your statement anywhere. Could you explain why you came to that conclusion please?

***

This was from your link though:

Children, here defined as those under age 17, represented 194 of fatalities, 20% of the total. Any child fatality is a tragedy, but it is important to note that children make up over half the population of Gaza.

If I take your point that the Israelis are being specific and intentional, not "indiscriminate", how in the world can this be justified?

I take that back, suggesting that you justify the actions of the armed forces of a foreign country. That's unfair. But it is also wrong. I am struggling and failing to express my shock and disbelief at the inconsistency, the hypocrisy here. Asymmetrical warfare is a phrase that makes me want to wash my mouth with soap. "You kill one of mine, I kill twenty of yours." J.F.C.

I have lost a lot of respect for all sides in this conflict, those claiming to represent authority and responsibility for what's happening, but that loss is not equal. It is proportional to how much respect I had before this last conflagration. It is proportional to how much power they have. And Israel has lost most of my respect in this regard.

I hold them to a higher standard. They have more of everything in this conflict, and they have more responsibility, too. This whole fucking shitshow saddens and sickens me.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

I haven't posted any of the many, many stories about "collaborators" being executed by Hamas because they have all been in Israeli newspapers. Finally it is hitting the Times. This story is the tip of the iceberg. It says 18 is the largest number. Israeli newspapers are reporting hundreds, including many who worked on digging tunnels, since once they worked on tunnels they knew where the tunnels were, can't have that.

Yep. Hamas are not the most pleasant people in the world. Killing the poor sods who dug the tunnels is ridiculous. And, one wuold think entirely counter productive? Wtf is going to be willing to do that work in the future?

Killing actual collaborators: wrong, definitely wrong. But also something that has been done by occupied peoples the world over, pretty much throughout the whole of human history. Plenty of French collaborators lost their lives to the resistance. The IRA killed and maimed a fair few people they considered 'collaborators'. Still wrong - but not at all unusual. I'd honestly be more surprised to find that Hamas hadn't killed people suspected of being collaborators.

[DanaC]

Worth mentioning btw that israel's practice of paying (and pressuring) Palestinian civilians to act as informants might have something to with increased tension around collaborators. Particularly in the wake of several high impact killings of Hamas leaders.

[Big Sarge]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Worth mentioning btw that israel's practice of paying (and pressuring) Palestinian civilians to act as informants might have something to with increased tension around collaborators. Particularly in the wake of several high impact killings of Hamas leaders.

all countries involved in spying/targetting pay informants or put some other pressure on them to keep the information flowing. law enforcement does the same. this should not be a surprise to anyone

[DanaC]

Oh I agree. Not much of this is surprising really.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by BigV

I read your link. I found no support for your statement anywhere. Could you explain why you came to that conclusion please?

Yes, I read and evaluated a bunch of sources for that post but I worked hard to find the source furthest from Israel possible, as two Dwellars have mentioned they do not trust Israeli sources and I should think there are others who feel that way. Then that source (Time) didn't have the detail that those other sources had. So.

Here is a chart comparing the casualty demographics to the actual demographics of Gaza as of late July. You'll notice that young males are pretty much taking the brunt of it. Look at the age 20-24 category in particular. In that age group, women outnumber men by a ratio of 3 to 1. Yet 90% of the casualties in that age group are men. You will have to decide for yourself whether Dana's explanation for this discrepancy explains it. At the very least, it begs the question of why this would be the case if the IDF was bombing everything.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by BigV

Asymmetrical warfare is a phrase that makes me want to wash my mouth with soap. "You kill one of mine, I kill twenty of yours."

Whatever you think of Netanyahu, what do you make of this quote:

The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would be no more war.

And Sparky, I respectfully ask you to avoid all the "saddens and sickens" kind of stuff. It can a different kind of conversation. I'm only asking.

[Undertoad]

But also something that has been done by occupied peoples the world over, pretty much throughout the whole of human history.

Certainly, but it doesn't have to be so. Palestinians on the West Bank were occupied by Jordan for 20 years and everyone was fine with that.

I'd wager that if the UN were occupying Gaza there would still be war with the Jews. That's where the money and power comes from.