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DPChallenge Forums >> Rant >> The Gaza Strip media coverage
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Showing posts 126 - 129 of 129, (reverse)
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01/21/2009 05:59:09 PM · #126
Originally posted by scalvert:

Bear in mind that civilian casualties are strategic for both sides. Hamas shoots from hospitals, schools and mosques knowing that return fire on those positions would result in international condemnation and bolster local support. Israel generally avoids civilian casualties where practical or convenient, but I don't think it's a huge priority because they have long viewed such losses as a strong disincentive (if your actions result in your family being hurt or house being bulldozed, then you won't be so eager to keep doing it).

I think Hamas' policies and rhetoric have made peace essentially unattainable by now. They've called for nothing less than Israel's utter destruction for so long that settling for anything less would cause them to lose face and the respect of their supporters. But if that's the only acceptable outcome, then negotiations are pointless because Israel's certainly not going to agree to its own destruction. Hamas will simply try to maintain the status quo (and thus their image) unless some major event allows them to claim "victory" in the face of compromise.


I just don't get this.

Israel breaks the ceasefire and fairly cynically invades Palestine, destroys millions of dollars worth of infrastructure, kills over a 1,000 people in circumstances that it won't reveal to journalists, maims and seriously injures another 4000, bombs UN missions, its army shoots civilians waving white flags, and uses weapons in cities that are prohibited in urban centres because of the inhuman level of pain and sufferring that they cause. There are claims that they should be prosecuted for war crimes and neutral agencies decry their actions. All this in a cynical major show of force knowing that this may be its last opportunity for a while to retain US support given the change in US leadership.

And yet you think that the real obstacle to peace is Hamas and its rhetoric.

[All this when the real aims (as pretty much everyone knows beyond the bluster) is for the return of land seized by Israel in 1967 and the end to the oppression of the Palestinian people.]
02/09/2009 01:43:03 PM · #127
The following report and video is from a partisan source. However, it is pretty shocking behaviour, and raises questions in my mind about how the use of human shields is blamed for civilian deaths.

//palsolidarity.org/2009/02/5065

02/09/2009 03:10:23 PM · #128
I thought I read recently that the UN or International Court was investigating Hamas for War crimes due to their use of civilians as human sheilds in violation of international rules of war as well as their repeated firing of rockets into Israel? There certainly appears to be more than one side to this conflict - likely a composite "truth" as well.
02/09/2009 04:46:57 PM · #129
Originally posted by Flash:

I thought I read recently that the UN or International Court was investigating Hamas for War crimes due to their use of civilians as human sheilds in violation of international rules of war as well as their repeated firing of rockets into Israel? There certainly appears to be more than one side to this conflict - likely a composite "truth" as well.


Hamas is not being investigated: war crimes were clearly being committed by Hamas in targeting civilian cities. Israel is being investigated, because it denies everything: //www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hodesGxL8KO-Dib-ugYBmPbTyqeAD964P84O0

Incidentally, Israel is accused of attempting to rewrite international law in its favour, sparking a group of US professors to call for an academic boycott of Israel: //www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12226

Assuming that both are ultimately guilty of war crimes, there is a clear gulf (to my mind) between firing home made rockets without clear state sanction killing 3 Israelis, and for the state to relax the rules of engagement (to protect Israeli troops) killing over 900 Palestinian civilians inc. hundreds of children and maiming thousands more, destroying whole villages, farms etc.

Will penalties ever be levied that fit the crimes?

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