Israel's insanity

omfg! mortar rounds? that totally justifies it.. nevermind then, mortar rounds are freaking bad.. just have the U.S made F-16s bomb those mortar launching f***ers along with the children hiding inside the school nearby.. that's justified, it's MORTAR!

these "two anonymous residents" are unfortunately a figment of someone's imagination.. good to know you believed it..

 

I can't believe you can still defend Israel's actions.

There nothing good that can come out of this for Israel, just like there is nothing good that came out of the Iraq war. If there were a 10 terrorists before I am sure there are a 100 now.

Will this make Hamas learn anything? I doubt it. They already had nothing, so what did they have to lose?

Now we are seeing a wave of antisemitism going around the globe. Congratulations Israel mission accomplished.

 

Nuclear weapons are awful and indiscriminate on a tremendous scale... I am not sure why past military action of the US would validate another country's (or the US again) use of a nuclear weapon.

That was not really my point in responding to Lil, I was just surprised that he was surprised that people were getting agitated when he suggested that another country drop a nuclear bomb on behalf of Hamas.

 

[rquoter]
Liar, liar, pants on cease-fire
Dec. 21, 2008
Barry Rubin , THE JERUSALEM POST

f you can understand why Hamas is ending its cease-fire with Israel, you can comprehend Middle East politics. And if you can't, you can't.

From of a Western moderate pragmatist standpoint, Hamas's decision makes no sense for several reasons:

• Hamas cannot defeat Israel militarily. Thus, fighting won't improve Hamas's strategic situation or bring victory.
  
• Israeli counterattacks will cause both injuries and material damage in the Gaza Strip, inflicting big costs on Hamas's domain and subjects.
  
• Returning to warfare will ensure Hamas remains politically isolated and blocks international recognition or aid that would help its cause or end economic sanctions against the Gaza Strip.
  
• Going back to fighting makes certain that the Gaza Strip faces continued, even heightened, reductions in the material let in, thus ensuring more Palestinian suffering there.

AND HAMAS is seemingly making three additional mistakes regarding timing.

The first is that it is ending the cease-fire while George W. Bush is president. Certainly Israel feels freer to hit back at Hamas now than after Barack Obama is inaugurated simply because the new administration would want to avoid a crisis before it consolidates its plans and team. Also, the US is likely to prefer quiet as it begins withdrawing from Iraq.

Second, the cease-fire is being suspended on the eve of a major Palestinian crisis as Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas announces a self-extension of his term in office. One might think Hamas would prefer to keep the Israel front quiet for a while to focus on battling Fatah and the PA.

Finally, there's the Israeli election campaign. While this doesn't make large-scale retaliation inevitable, such a move would make the current government more popular with the electorate.

Therefore, Hamas's behavior, an outside observer can easily conclude, seems stupid. But having built a mass movement, sizable army, seized the Gaza Strip and built broad support throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds, Hamas may be composed of genocide-oriented fanatics but not fools. What then explains this apparently silly behavior?

HERE'S A case study of how Middle East politics really work:

• Hamas really believes its own propaganda, expecting victory despite the odds. Costs and casualties are irrelevant. The battle will go on until total victory even if that takes decades. This indicates Hamas will not moderate - the same applies to Hizbullah, Syria and Iran.
  
  
• At the same time, Hamas is not only indifferent to its own people's welfare, it actually seeking to inflict suffering on them as a political strategy. The worse off Palestinians are, Hamas believes, the more likely they will fight and die. This "the worse things are, the better they are" is the exact opposite of Western perspectives.

But Hamas goes even further. It knows suffering can be blamed on Israel. Western pragmatists reason that obviously the Palestinians must prefer peace, prosperity and statehood. Rejectionism must then be due to desperation and the lack of a good offer or faith in the West. In fact, though, the situation is not due to our mistakes but to their deliberate choices.

Thus, Hamas can well conclude that the best way to put pressure on Israel and - in its own mind at least - gain Western help is to be more radical, not more moderate.

To cite one example, what is considered America's leading newspaper recently reported that both sides violate the cease-fire: Hamas fires rockets at Israel; Israel retaliates by closing the border. By this definition, the fact that Hamas and its allies fire rockets at civilians doesn't allow any Israeli response, military or otherwise. This is the kind of thinking Hamas seeks to promote.

Then, too, setting off a crisis, Hamas expects, will draw peacekeepers like hardworking ants, giving press conferences in which they will insist that "something must be done to defuse the crisis." That "something" usually seems to be unilateral Israeli concessions. In short, the international community may rush in to save Hamas or the Palestinians in spite of themselves.

At the same time, though, Hamas believes that its intransigence and aggressiveness will increase support in the Arab and Muslim worlds. As with Hizbullah, waging a war and portraying it as victory - even though the facts are otherwise - makes one a hero and attracts financing. This is also a judgment regarding Palestinian responses. More popular support can be garnered by producing martyrs than by producing higher living standards. Thus, Hamas will do better in its rivalry with the PA by fighting Israel than by fighting poverty.

I am not saying this strategy will work completely, but it does succeed in part. If one believes the short run is irrelevant and the deity is on one's side, reality looks rather different. In addition, macho militancy in the Middle East does bring popularity, both domestic and international. The last quarter-century has also shown that Western sympathy can be manipulated by increasing violence and blocking solutions to the conflict in a way that will be blamed on Israel.

Yet this world view is also illusory. Impoverishing one's people and destroying the infrastructure over which one rules makes such groups weaker rather than stronger, especially as Israel focuses on material gains. Western patience with the Palestinians has waned; Arab states are not so eager to help. A strategy depending on suicide bombers is also ultimately suicidal.

Ironically, too, regarding the West, Islamists cannot get away with what radical Arab nationalists can. Too many Western intellectuals, journalists, leftists and even politicians might have been carried away with revolutionary romanticism for Fatah - seeing Yasser Arafat as merely an ugly version of Che Guevara. Far fewer see radical Islamists as heroic liberators.

The bottom line is that Hamas will remain isolated and weaker than it could be if it kept things quiet, consolidated its hold on the Gaza Strip, built up its armies and base of support and had more patience.

But Hamas will also survive, ideology undiluted, able to utter war cries about wiping Israel off the map and intoxicated with the belief it is following divine will. That's enough for Hamas's leadership and followers.

[/rquoter]

 

Again, if you bothered to read, you would see that I posted video of insurgents launching mortars from schools awhile back. Maybe this video is a figment of someone's imagination as well? The brave and just Hamas would never do anything to endanger their own people! Perish the thought!


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That you dismiss everything because it is from a Jewish source tells me alot about your "impartial" judgement.

 

Ottomaton sir, I admire the objectivity of your source, The Jerusalem Post..

I'm gonna stop arguing with you sir as it is obvious that its futile.. I don't want to ruin the fuzziness and happiness you're feeling, that's why I won't talk about the 215 terrorist kids and 89 terrorist women that Hamas monsters are hiding behind, thus causing israel to "accidentally" kill them in the process of "defending" itself and avenging the ZERO deaths caused by the Rocket fires..or was it 1 death?

 

Yes, we had such a disregard for human life so as to pick Hiroshima and Nagasaki in lieu of Tokyo, where the loss of life would have been far greater.

In regard to that naval blockade...the kamikazi pilots were continuing to fall from the sky, and the concern was that the blockade would be destroyed. This in addition to the aforementioned death marches, etc, led to the decision.

Most people that have studied history that I have talked to believe that it would have been a longer and bloodier war without the use of the bomb.

You can chest beat and claim moral superiority all you would like. It does not make you any more right on this.

 

From the website about the Enola Gay....

While Americans and Japanese alike expected the war to end only after a bloody invasion of Japan, the U. S. government was readying a secret weapon that would dramatically affect the war's outcome-. the atomic bomb. In the spring and summer of 1945, American leaders had to decide whether to use this new weapon against Japanese cities. According to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, however, "the decision whether or not to use the atomic bomb ... was never even an issue." Upon becoming President in April 1945, Harry Truman inherited an expensive bomb project that had always aimed at producing a military weapon. Truman saw the bomb as a way to end the war and save lives by avoiding a costly invasion of Japan. He wanted, he said, to prevent casualties on the scale of "an Okinawa from one end of Japan to the other."

 

Yes, choosing where to drop a massively destructive weapon is infinitely better than not dropping it all! Your logic never ceases to amaze me. It is the equivalent of man shooting an innocent person. Did they shoot them in the head, or the arm? What does it matter, a bullet was fired upon someone who did no wrong to that man.

Eisenhower, before becoming President, said it was militarily unnecessary. Do I need to acknowledge Eisenhower's brilliance in military strategy? What about Douglar MacArthur? Probably the greatest tactician in American history, he disagreed with the Allied terms of unconditional surrender for Japan. Japan would not give up imperial rule that easily, and when the surrender actually came it was on a condition - the continuation of imperial reign.

So don't feed me BS that it would have saved lives and other nonsense. America used terrorism to achieve political goals with Japan, terrorism that was not even needed.

 

Amazing how many islamist freaks are around.

 

The hypocrisy in this statement couldn't be thicker from someone who flings accusations of anti-semitism in every other post.

 

Not that many. Actually, I haven't seen one. Only a bunch of Zionists who have animosity to Arabs/Muslims.

If Hamas were to blow up a UN-run school in Israel because it saw IDF members in there, what would public opinion be then?

Israel does it to 3 UN-run schools where people are taking refuge, and no independent sources can verify a justification.

 

Nice to see that my post got you riled up enough to display disagreement, while Lil's post didn't. Shows your true colors.

 

Yes, because we all feel the need to reply to every single person's post in every single thread.

 

Well, you are another Israel hater, so it is not surprising that you are another poster who would pick those posts that agree with Israel's right to defend itself to express your anger and disagreement - instead of a post that calls for nuking an entire nation.

 

I'm with Otto. If they don't want schools bombed, quit launching mortars from them. Who's more at fault here seriously? Those using the children as shields, or those trying to aim at those behind the shields?

Hamas does not have cease fires. They have hudnas. It's an enormous joke to think that an organization that actively proclaims a desire to exterminate another people wants peace. All they want are small breaks to lick their wounds after getting the **** kicked out of them. It also lets them utilize worldwide apathy as a tool to assure that when the next round starts, another wave of wannabe humanitarians can lamblast isreal for targeting schools and mosques, even though time and time again, hamas et.al. does this intentionally without regard to their own people, and provokes the attacks to begin with.

Pity? Yes, I pity those innocent children. I pity them for being unwillingly involved with such a callous and barbarous group of cretins as Hamas.