Israeli documents show a deliberate policy of keeping Gazans hungry

On the brighter side, I love where this thread is going.

Lebanese chicks are the hottest and so ridiculously obsessed with making sure they are attractive.

If you haven't been to Beirut, you are missing out. Great clubs, restaurants, beautiful women, awesome weather, and very good scenery.

 

Nope, why?

 

Yes it is. No rational person would think that the Gazan's somehow got stuck with Hamas when they were the winners of one of the most widely publicized elections I have ever seen.

It sure seems like you are discussing

My post was not incredibly long. I chose my words. I would prefer you not replace them with your own more confusing version. Oh well.

Correct. Israel maintains control over the airspace and sea access to Gaza as best they can,, but Hamas controls interior operations. Egypt is a completely sovereign country with 10 times the population and 50 times the surface area of Israel.

No. Israel's ability to prevent tunneling from Egypt to Gaza is much less than the US ability to prevent tunneling from Mexico to the US. We can't keep tunnels going between border towns, the length of the border is not the problem. The problem becomes more difficult when you do not have unfettered access to even one side of the border.

Hamas is made up of Palestinians. Many members of Hamas live in the Gaza strip. Hamas is a terrorist organization. Therefor there are Gazans who are terrorists. QED

The election was by and large a contest between Hamas and Fatah. Those were the options (in the way that Democrat and Republican are the options in US elections, you can vote for something else but one of them is controlling the legislature). I don't know what you mean by bias. I assume the people who voted for Hamas were biased toward Hamas and the people who voted Fatah were biased that way. Otherwise, they probably voted for the wrong party.

A couple questions here. First, what do you mean Hamas have all the weapons? The PA, controlled until the elections by Fatah, had armed police forces. The IDF have weapons. Individual citizens have weapons. Second, defense from whom? They certainly are not an effective defense for the citizens of Gaza from Israel. They were under no apparent threat from Egypt. They have no other borders and no navy to protect them from attacks from the sea. If anything, it seems that electing Hamas led to being less secure if the lives of the people in the Fatah controlled West Bank are any indication.

See above re: you re-writing my words.

I don't believe in the death penalty, so I would not suggest execution. I would propose that the people of Gaza elect a more legitimate government who then arrest all of the terrorists and throw them in jail. That would be one solution. If unable to arrest the terrorists because "Hamas [has] all the weapons", the new government could request help from someone else in dealing with the terrorists. The US is in the terrorist fighting business, as is Israel. They should probably get back together with the PA and negotiate as a single unit. The recombined Palestinians should then suggest the Barak deal to Israel and negotiate a more permanent peace.

 

My Lord.

There is only one group of people with food and weapons. No matter how many times they hold this election, Hamas will win, and virtually all of Gaza will be linked to Hamas.

FYI, Israel has bombed those tunnels in the past, and it can do so again and again and again and again. There is absolutely no reason Israel can't say they were smuggling illegal goods or that the tunnels violate the blockade. Anything is possible.

The only reason Israel does not bomb those tunnels right now is because Gazans are on the brink of starvation and any deterioration in the humanitarian state of Gaza would be a nightmare for Israeli PR - at a time when support for them is shrinking.

I also want to add that you specifically said LOCALS are shooting at the IDF. Are you saying they are Hamas millitants or not?

 

You are implying that Israel does not care about human life, just about Israeli PR. Is that really what you think? Why do you demonize Israel like that?

 

I'm sorry I can't be sympathetic to a country engaging in the systematic starvation of Gaza. I'm so inhuman. In fact, I'm the one who should be demonized. I'm sorry ATW, you've showed me the error in my ways.

 

Do you really think that "if nobody knew", they would just kill all Palestinians?

 

I didn't get this. If nobody knew? Who would kill all Palestinians?

 

The way you phrased it, it sounded like it is your opinion, that the only reason Israel would not kill all Palestinians is "potentially bad PR". So I was asking you if you think that if it was not for "bad PR", Israel would just kill all Palestinians.

 

They wouldn't kill them obviously, but I think they would forcibly and systematically deport them (to wherever that may be).

 

No you misunderstood my post.

I said that Israel is not attacking the tunnels on the border of Egypt because it would worsen the humanitarian nightmare in Gaza which is cause by Israel's blockade. Then nightmare I speak of is a PR nightmare.

If you're asking if I think Israel would care if things got worse, I'd have to say no. If they are ever going to be concerned with the health of Gazans, the situation right now is so dire that they would already be worried. Why are they not? The only thing which eased the blockade was a PR nightmare. This is exhibit 1.

Other evidence suggests that the blockade is not specifically directed at Hamas, rather the entire Gazan population. Several items on the banned list of items have no correlation to any possible aggressive activity (my favorite is coriander). To me, this clearly indicates that the blockade is meant to hurt all of Gaza. Whether that's because of poor management or poor intent is a topic I'd love to hear about. The silly items are now freely traded following BBC's publicizing of them. This is exhibit 2.

At present, I would have to be an idiot to believe anything else. I'm not one for blind faith. I like to gather up the available evidence and weigh the situation.

You are right though, maybe I am misinformed. Could you present me some evidence which shows that Israel is genuinely concerned about Gazans in such a way that it would at least attempt to customize the blockade to strike the heart of Hamas' operations rather than ever man, woman and child? Maybe there are statistics which show that the level of Israeli casualties shrank dramatically without creating a sharp increase in death from disease, malnutrition, etc on the Gazan side? In all honesty, I've been looking for this kind of information.

You seem to be compeltely on board with Israeli policy in this regard, I can only assume that you've satisfied yourself with some sort of evidence that suggests the blockade is a good idea and that Israel is handling it in the most responsible way possible.

 

I can't present you evidence - quite frankly, I do not know enough about it in detail. That is also why I cannot say I am completely on board with Israeli policy. The only thing that seems evident to me is that Israel does have genuine security concerns and that I have seen more hate from the Palestinian side of things when I see discussions between both sides on TV. Whether and how much Israel goes overboard in some cases while trying to enforce their security considerations - I don't know in detail, but I do not doubt that it has happened.

I just object to the hate against Israel I see from some posters.

 

Well, I'll tell you right now, I won't withhold my hatred for Israel's policies just because it is easy for people to stereotype me into an Israel-hater. Just like I don't defend Hamas just because they are allegedly fighting Israel. I call it like I see it.

For what it's worth, I have shown evidence supporting my position in previous threads. Disease, starvation, Hamas' gifted dominance, stupid items blocked for stupid reasons, you name it it's in there. The blockade is not effective enough to be justified, and it is Israel's responsibility. They must take responsibility for their f-ups, or man up and say they are willing to starve all of Gaza even if it means an insignificant improvement in security. They must show that there is a way other than international ridicule to get them to act in a fair way. I haven't seen these things, therefore my opinion of the policy makers is poor.

So what I'm getting here is you want to defend Israel even though you know very little about this particular situation. I can't understand that. But to each his own I guess.

 

You have a totally one-sided view of the situation. I can't blame you too much, though, having been to the Arabic world and having read the propaganda in newspapers (even English-speaking ones). It's like kids get brought up with it, and adults still get fed with it.

I don't know every detail of the situation, but I know I have a more objective view than you do.

Both sides are at fault to some extent, yet all I see from you and most other muslim posters, with few exceptions, is demonization of Israel, with no mention of the faults of Hamas and the Arabic side.

 

ATW - there's no doubt that both sides are at fault here. But to base all of your opinions on what you see/read in the media alone (western media at that) is not very objective either.

After all, it's quite evident that the Israeli government is far better at the whole PR thing than the Palestinians anyways.

 

This thread is about Israeli policy affecting Gazan civilians.

Are you going to tell me that Hamas is responsible for Gazans not being allowed coriander for example?

No. You are fully aware that we are discussing how these policies are formulated and how they affect Gazans, independent of the obvious controls which must be put in place for Israeli security.

So we are not discussing whether Israel should ban grenades from going into Gaza. We are discussing whether Israel should be banning types/amounts of food, for example.

I can't believe you are even still discussing this after admitting that you don't know the details. They are out there, go read them if you care. You are making a fool out of yourself defending something which you admittedly don't know the details of.

Right now you're just nagging because you hear anti-Israel sentiment. It might be a good idea to find out what everyone is talking about first.

 

Yes, that is what I am telling you. If Hamas did not threaten Israel and had been responsible for lots of suicide bombings, etc., then Gazans would have coriander (by the way, I hate coriander).

 

I was just listening to this Kanye West song...it has nothing to do with politics, but it somehow sort of describes Israeli foreign policy...he even name drops Allah.

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So how is it not a violation of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (collective punishment)?

Article 33. No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.

 

You believe this is fair and acceptable?