No, there was a cease-fire, the number of rockets fired dropped massively.

"Rocket fire decreased 98% in the four and a half months between Jun 18 and Nov 4 in comparison with the four and half months preceding the ceasefire. Over 1,894 rockets were fired into Israel from Feb to Jun 18, 2008 and 37 were fired between Jun 18 and the beginning of November."


Miserable? How about "dead".

The "needed" amount of destruction? Do you really think that Israels actions in Gaza are going to produce less anger from Palestinians? Surely you understand this.
What exactly is the needed amount?

These rocket attacks began after an Israeli strike in Gaza, in violation of the truce.
Even if Hamas are playing this game you have hypothesised, there is noreason for Israel to play along. It would be a monumentally stupid move on their part, even more so than the current bloody war.

Again, why does Israel have to play along? Surely they are smarter than to play into the hands of such a *seemingly* obvious ploy.

A map highighting the vast lands occupied by Muslims, vs the single, miniscule Jewish state
http://www.masada2000.org/isr-world.gif


I think it's sad that people won't allow the Jews even the tiniest portion of their ancestral home. Talk about extremists.

Neal, it isn't a Muslim vs. Jewish issue, it concerns the actions of Israel in Gaza over the last two weeks.

The fact that more area of the worlds surface is occupied by mostly-Muslim populations is of little comfort to the dead of Gaza.

The issue is very simple, Tchocky. You asked what is the needed ammount of destruction to acchieve that Palestinians do not terrorise Israel with missile attacks. the answer is: the ammount of destruction and killing and suffering that accieves to stop them committing such action. Currently, obviously their pain and suffering still is not big enough, and Hamas still feels confident to occasionally fire back with missiles. Well, keep on bombing them then, and strike them harder. the place is limited in size, the place is isolated, nothing gets in or out - sooner or later they will have had enough, since they are not in supply, and have no safe haven to go. hezbollah in Lebanon had plenty of open range to use, and open supply lines - the Palestinians in Gaza have not. They cannot hold out forever. So: press on until they break, it is only a question of time. If that costs the lives of their civilians: well, then why did they start it. Neither Israel nor anyone else did ask them for it.

If you minimise what it means to live in constant fear of the next alarm, like many thousands of Israeli families do since many years, then you never have experienced violent force directly yourself, and I do not speak of a small backyard rumble from your juvenile years, but bombs and collapsing structures and blood and bodyparts laying on the street. Well, I never was fighting in a war, thankfully, but I have experienced this, both in berlin and then out of the blue, and then again saw the scene of such action in Algeria and Turkey, and it is not a pleasant thing. Only somebody not knowing such experiences and sights could recommend to tolerate them in the name of some abstract ideals of peace and coexistence. If explosions go up and bullets fly and a house front comes down, then it is only the next moment you worry about, and all ideals and ideas go immediately out of the window - even yours. Make that fear for the next attack a constant state of life, and you have a mind in desperation, depression, making people sick and ill. Such things cannot be tolerated. That's why I give Israel any right there is to do anything needed to stop such things committed by Palestinians. I even give them the right to sink all hellhole of Gaza in the ocean if Palestinians do not stop terrorising their families in their homes.

If such action increases Palestinians anger, or Arabs anger, or Muslims anger, is unimportant.They are angered anyway, if not over this, then over something different the bad bad West has done to them poor poor fellas, so why worry. It is not their arab brothers helping and financing them so that they do not starve in Gaza - it is the EU for the most, and the UN second. Just for the record.

and that Hamas has inferior missiles only, compared to Hezbollah for example: well, after Lebanon 2006 Hamas took Hezbollah as an example it tried to follow, trying to copy them. It seems that Israel has a.) adapted to this in chnaged military tactics, and b.) was not willing to wait until Hamas also stockpiled as lethal weapons and missiles as that of Hezbollah, which even fielded hightech ATGMs like the Franco-German Milan and the latest reincarnations of RPG-7 (which are said to be tough enough to even threaten Abrams armour, we know from Iraq). The range of terror missiles by which they struck Israel, constantly increases. That they are not precise for the most does not mean to be an argument, they fire them nevertheless, which means a.) they do not care and certainly hope to kill civilians - and b.) that they are stupid to provoke Israel if such are their weapons. It is about propaganda scores again, and palestinians in the end killing Palestinioans to blame Israel for it. Also, these missiles, whether they hit their target or not, by intention are targetted at civilian settlements. Two days ago, an asylum for old people got hit, I remember. Consider the missile to be a bigger one, and we would not talk about being lucky in getting struck, but maybe dozens dead. Is that what you are waiting for? I hope not.

Nobody can seriously expect Israel to wait until things have gotten that bad, before it decides to do something about the threat. That is no pro-zionism. That is no mere sympathy or a German guilt-complex towards Israel when I say that. It simply is a normal reaction to provoking action, it simply is common sense.

They shoot at you? You shoot back until either they cannot shoot anymore, or are dead. Very simple.

Stop judging war by standards of peacetime and order. War is neither a decreased state of peace, nor reduced order, but the absence of both, the antithesis. trying to judge war by standards of peace morals, is illogical and absurd, it makes completely no sense and just leads to confusion about the nature of war and how to keep it rare in happening, and short in action, and victorious in outcome. Once the state of war has ended, you can judge life by the standards of peace and order again. War you have to assess by the standards of war only. Seen that way, there is no such thing like "horrific wars", because that is already inclusive part of the definition, and there cannot be such a thing like a "non-horrific war", that is like "non-fluid liquid". the only thing making sense is to say that "war is horrific", if you get the nuance.

and if you don't want war, for wars are horrific, then better don't provoke your neighbour until he has enough of you and launches one against you, in order to get rid of your provocations. Keep on killing his nerves and deplreting his patience, and expect to get struck sooner or later. What is so difficult in understanding that simple truth.

Okay, time for me to move on. No further comments from me on the Gaza war.

Good point! It is about the size of Jersey. I think the Palestinians simply cannot stand the fact that Israel actually did something productive with the land rather than living like desert rats.

Be more specific on wich educated Palestinians your talking about. The one who live in europe maybe :-?. Sorry i didn`t get your message.

LOL :rotfl:

That video was no mistake!
It is just a commercial for what is awaiting the Hamas warriors in Djanna! :lol:

Cheers,
Michael

After posting my last one, there was a 5 minute TV news on German-Austrian-Swiss "3SAT"-Program, in their magazin "Kulturzeit". It is no spectacular news, but has two interesting short notes. Filmed by a Palestinian cameraman working for German first television program "ARD" (one of our two public major stations), they said that like most others they need to depend on Palestinian reporters with whom they cooperate, and who live under constant threat to get sacked by Hamas, since Hamas wants to prevent independant reports from Gaza like Israel prevents foreign reporters going into Gaza.

What is stunning in all material we get from the focus of all censorship, Gaza, is that you never see Hamas people, no fighters, no weapons, and no killed Hamas people. What you see instead is plenty of children, big brown, tearful eyes like that from deer in a searchlight, and crying women.

http://mediathek.daserste.de/daserst...d=&goto=1&show=

At 00:00:40 you see two men walking down the street. I saw it in big format on TV screen, they are dressed like civlians, but carry weapons, assault rifles, under their coats. Original comment:

"And here, for the first time one can see Islamic fighters. their weapons they carry under their cloathes, one can see that very clearly. They are disguised as civilians. This fact leaves questions emerging. That there are civilian casualties is beyond doubt, that the suffering is huge is clear also - but are all "civilian casualties" really always civilian casualties...?"

And at 00:02:05, when they let the Palestinian cameraman speak, who works for the german ARD channel and created the film material, he says (while filmed by his son):

"Ist also a bad thing that we (his family and himself) are living in a multistory building. Many journalists live inside here. I am afraid that somebody abuses this circumstance, climbs on the roof, and from there opens fire at the Israelis - and after that the Israelis bomb this house."

This was filmed and said in the evening, 21:00 local time, with Israeli frontline just some 300 meters away. Next early morning the family fled.

Now, this really was my last comment on the issue now.

I disagree, it is very much a Mulsim vs Jewish issue, always has been. The Muslims are in solidarity on this and remind us about it constantly. And as I said, with the Muslims occupying so many, many acres of land, they should back off and allow the Jews to keep their tiny strip. If they did allow this, there would be no dead in Gaza. You make it sound like the Israelis are looking for a war. That's not the case at all. Someone shoots a rocket in my yard, I want the US Marines to go in and straighten it out.

That doesn't make sense to me. The palestinans and arabs already have massive amounts of land they call their own. The Jews are merely minorities in countries populated by others. They want to have a homeland, and after the way they were massacred in WWII, I don't blame them.

Anyway, if it would solve the issue, send the palestians to Texas, we'll give them a few million acres and they will love the food.

Hail Author Balfour. Praise the Lord. Jesus H. Christ will be back soon.

That's a ridiculously simplistic way to look at the conflict. What of the Palestinians who are blockaded into a tiny strip of land, and bombed? SHould they just let it slide, because on balance there are more Muslim-square-miles in the world than Jewish-square-miles? Because there are moer adherents to one faith than another?
Do you believe that the Israeli action in Gaza is proportionate?

20 dead from Palestinian rockets over the last eight years.
Almost 1000 dead in the last two weeks.

Tchocky, I agree that the Israelis bombed in violation of the most recent ceasefire. But was not the target a tunnel, which was by its very existence a violation of the ceasefire? In which case, it would be the Palestinians who violated the ceasefire first, and the Israeli bombing was a reaction to this...? Anyway debate will continue back and forth depending on which source you rely upon for news.

Firstly though, since the UN mandate created Israel they have had to be constantly on guard. After several attacks there came the 6 Day War, in which Israel captured large tracts of land. This land was seized legally and fairly by the Israelis. Had they not been attacked, the land would never have come into their posession.:ping:

They're stuck between a rock and a hard place. The Israelis pulled out of Gaza and essentially gave it back. Almost immediately though, the attacks started again. they tried to do the right thing (possibly left it a bit late, but they left nonetheless) and were stabbed in the back as they were walking out.

Now the Palestinians went and elected Hamas, a party sworn to see Israel's destruction. given the Jewish history, I can understand them being a little antsy about that. This is, I believe, where debates like the one we're having (civil, not nasty, hooray) stem from. The Israelis control the flow of aid etc to Gaza. But they know that supplies etc going in are almost all pilfered by Hamas. The Israelis could allow more through in the hope that some will reach the majority of the civvies, but Hamas would simply line their coffers more thickly. So, not wanting to supply the enemy they limit the flow, which means the civvies miss out. The more liberal-minded among us feel that aid is the number one priority, that the Israelis ought to be more selfless and allow for and provide more aid to the Palestinians. However, on the other hand there are those of us who see inherent risks in supplying your enemy, particularly one sworn to your destruction. If they allowed more aid in, who disperses it? Hamas...

Personally im in the latter camp. As much as I'd love to see peace and free love and harmonious living break out, I know it won't because there are people too ideologically opposed to it.

A final point to keep in mind. Yes, Civvies are being killed, there is no doubt at all. It always has been and always will be a fact of war. However, whats the difference between a Hamas fighter and a civvy? remove his weapon for a photo, and theres another civvy lying on the ground. Don't think that the palestinians aren't propaganda-savvy. they're looking to gain as much ground with the more liberal-minded westerners, and will lie about it - anyone remember the video of the kid cowering with his dad under fire, and then it emerged they faked the whole thing??

The whole thing there is a mess, and i don't see it ending until a group is wiped out entirely (barring a Star trek style intervention, that is).

Event of shame in Germany:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...601122,00.html

Spit.

Not exactly good press, but displaying an Israeli flag in Duisburg is like the proverbial white man donning a Klan hood and running through a Ghetto shouting "******s!".

Duisburg is Eurabia, maybe the worst in Germany.
I suppose most if not all protesters were turkish or other muslims.
And this flag guy was neither jewish nor israeli, a college student, most likely one of those anti-germans who are so leftist that they came full circle and support Bush and everything else...

Still kicking in the door and removing the flag was a bad call. Best course of action would've been not to take any action at all.
A few snow balls wouldn't have cause the building to collapse.
If they started assaulting the house they could've called for reinforcements.

But still, one wonders why the same police that is quite ready to bash some heads in if going up against German protesters is always so peaceful against foreigners.

Re the whole situation, I am still not sure what Israel is trying to accomplish.
Sure it feels good to kill a lot of Arabs, but it won't solve the whole situation.
In the end, I suppose they will simply declare they have succeeded and withdraw and everything starts over in a few months.
I mean they could occupy Gaza, that would stop rocket attacks, but they declared this was not the aim. They could also try to remove Hamas from Power, but that is also not the aim.
So this seems to me like the military action is mostly governed by internal politics of Israel.
In old times, Israel made war with clear cut political and strategic objectives, but today they're lacking that.
The IDF in Ghaza might be better trained and better performing than two years ago in Lebanon, but the politicians are definitely not.