Oh, well, that's clearly the same thing. I must have missed hearing about Bergen-Belsen's legendary olive-tree-uprootment corps. While these are not particularly good things, comparing them to the Nazi genocide is just ridiculous.
Well, at what point isn't it ridiculous? Carrying out ethnic cleansing openly through warfare, mass executions and deportation, or with the aforementioned subtler means so as not to get draw attention, are equally terrible. I see no major difference in the level of depravity.
Really? So you see no moral difference between reducing a population through mass executions and reducing the population by not allowing others to move into an area and the existing population attritioning through old age? Sorry. To me it makes a hell of a difference between a 20 year old being gassed in a concentration camp and a 60 year old dying in a refugee camp.
Then we'll have to agree to disagree. I believe that the only reason Israel hasn't engaged in gassing is because of the attention it would bring. If your goals include clearing off a piece of land so that a people you like more than the previous occupants can inhabit it, the means seem moot. I am sorry that my point of view is so disagreeable to some people here. I won't pretend to root for what I consider to be a genocidal, apartheid state, but it's hard to keep quiet when your position on the issue is the opposite of the one being supported.
While I agree that the oppression of Palestinians isn't on the same level as the holocaust, you have no fucking leg to stand on, since if you had your way, it would be.
Why waste time on zodiac. He's an anti-Semitic turd without a brain cell in his head. Ignore him like one does a horrid stench and move away.
I didn't see near the outrage poured out over Hamas behavior as toward the Israeli response to the Hamas behavior. And while it might be early for a detailed report there could still be a lot of rage poured out toward Iran the way they keep pouring it out toward Israel.
Zodiac and The Saint confuse me. I know one of them's a Neo-Nazi and the other one just hates Jews, but I always forget which is which.
I suspect that's in large part because you'll find very few people wanting to defend Hamas, while there are people who will defend Israel just about no matter what. In venues that are intended for discussion, you're more likely to hear people talk about issues where there is some debate, as opposed to spending lots of time condemning things that everybody pretty much agrees are bad.
That may have something to do with Israel causing 100 times more deaths. If you expect the report simply to confirm your biases, what's the point in it at all?
But I'm an "antisemitic turd without a brain cell". Why not ignore me like one does a horrid stench and move away? Isn't this libelous?
Maybe, if it were possible to libel an anonymous screen name. Are you channeling Enterpriser or something?
I'm not entirely familiar with that person. It's interesting how readily people are driven up the wall by a negative opinion of Israel. I don't think I could get such a reaction even if I posted the most offensive, anti-American material I could think of.
I used to work with 2.75 WP rockets when I was in the Air Force. It's some pretty unstable shit, that's for sure. Once it's burning you can "cancel Christmas" as it were.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8149464.stm And now we have Israeli soldiers confirming much of this...
I've deliberately stayed out of this thread because I knew what I would find would be the same-old-same-old. A slew of right-wingers bending over backwards to justify or make excuses for actions which, when perpetrated by any other regime but their own, they would call genocide. "My nation, right or wrong". Apparently this extends to the Israelis. a.
Your interpretation of what the soldiers said. Nothing they said indicated that war crimes were committed. They seemed to indicate that their rules of engagement tended to favor preserving the lives of Israeli soldiers at the expense of Palestinian civilians. but I see nothing wrong with this. Avoiding taking the lives of civilians is a good idea when possible (and not just for obvious moral reasons). But a nation should not ask its soldiers to put themselves in harms way just to avoid hurting or killing enemy civilians. My dad deliberately killed civilians in the Korean War and while he says it was regrettable, he says at the time it was completely understandable given the situation and the information he had at the time.
He was told that Korean farmers were smuggling weapons and munitions to the communist forces. He was ordered to stop them. He ordered his 155 mm howitzers to fire upon farmers and their carts at long range. After blowing them away he sent a patrol to investigate. They found that the farmers were carrying only produce. No weapons. No munitions. Is that a war crime? I do not think so because he was given a legitimate order based on what his superiors considered accurate intelligence. In war and in life, most tragedies are not crimes.