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ORIGINAL: Politesub53

Even Sanity said the op didnt say the demo was in Germany.

He just wanted it to look that way, which is racist in and of itself.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

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ORIGINAL: BamaD

To be blunt, for me, Israel is a wealthy, basically-Western, advanced industrialised power.

And that is their great sin.

Your avatar keeps reminding me: I keep thinking of dog lovers here - like perhaps even yourself, Bama - who've always said that there are no bad dogs, just dogs that are badly trained and brought upr.

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Why is it that that doesn't apply to humans? OK, it's 'instinct' in dogs to hunt and kill. But they mostly don't, of course, if you're kind to them, feed them well, give them a loving life - that kind of stuff.

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ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

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The British soldier killed in London was butchered by two lunatics who should have been hung, drawn and quartered.

That's the majority conclusion in the UK about that incident, I think. These were two psychopathic killers who just needed a rationalisation. If you want to get into some good bloodthirsty murdering, there's no doubt plenty in the Koran that *could be construed* to support it. Just as, no doubt, there is in the Bible.

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ORIGINAL: BamaD

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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

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ORIGINAL: subrosaDom

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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

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ORIGINAL: subrosaDom

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of Islam.

Sorry, mate, but we have muslims living in this country and in my experience 99.9% are no different to me in that they want to get their heads down and live their lives.

I don't recall ever being on the wrong end of violence distributed by any muslim.

Let's face it, mate, human beings living on this planet, past and present, have more chance of being attacked by the American and British governments than they do by any muslim, and that my friend is an insurmountable, cold, hard fact.

I would suggest that if you are Christian in the Middle East, it is not a cold hard fact at all. There is a Christian genocide (and I'm not religious myself) going on there now. In Syria, in Iraq, previously in Egypt, and certainly also in Africa. I also think the British soldier hacked to death in London might feel differently as would the Jews in France being killed and assaulted by Muslim mobs.

The British soldier killed in London was butchered by two lunatics who should have been hung, drawn and quartered.

But, as despicable as this act was, these events are so rare it's the first time it's happened.

Unlike the British and Americans invading people's countries and displacing millions of people and killing civilians (whether or not it is unintended is irrelevant to my point).

If you want to gloss over the actions of your government then that's fine, but it makes this whole discussion a sham because deep down we both know people have died at the hands of our governments when our governments have no business being there.

Couldn't help but notice you ignored all the other incidents mentioned.

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ORIGINAL: subrosaDom


when there is no more more equivalence between them than between the Axis and the Allies.

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ORIGINAL: BamaD

To be blunt, for me, Israel is a wealthy, basically-Western, advanced industrialised power.

And that is their great sin.

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ORIGINAL: crazyml


There has been massive ongoing debate about the rightness and the legality of the bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and several German cities during the war (Berlin and Dresden being discussed a lot). As I've said before on this thread, I think that these actions were (very narrowly) justified on the basis of lives saved, and the shortening of the war.

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When I was there about 4 year back, Israelis were forcing Palestinians out of their homes and giving them next to nothing in money for them. Some Israelis were really not happy that their government was doing this.

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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

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ORIGINAL: subrosaDom


when there is no more more equivalence between them than between the Axis and the Allies.

Of course there is. What? You think because it's 'the allies' we were all peace and love? Surely you understand that Britain fought to maintain its empire and keep the Germans from the French coast and threatening our trade; while the Americans also fought to extend their sphere of influence.

Look, I wouldn't put myself down as a moral relativist but, Christ, claiming Britain and the Americans are 'a pack of canny lads saving the world' is bordering on lunacy. The British and the Americans simply package it differently and it has been long understood that people are easily impressed with the packaging.

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

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subrosaDom
The IDF is killing large numbers of people just as the Allies did in WWII. Since Hamas hides its arsenals among its people, in hospitals, and in schools, then who is responsible for such violations of international law? Or is the IDF supposed to sit back and say, well, we can't attack Hamas because they violated int'l law, so we'll let their suicide squads come up out of the ground in the middle of schools in order to kill our children? The entire moral responsibility lies with Hamas. Now, can there be misguided missiles and strikes? Sure. It happens in war. War is hell. There is a world of difference between the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians not in harm's way (the Hamas way) and the targeting of arsenals and terroristic weapons and terrorists themselves so pusillanimous that they hide amongst their own wives and children so as to stir up sympathies among the hate Israeli crowd.

You have asserted a moral equivalence between Hamas and the IDF, when there is no more more equivalence between them than between the Axis and the Allies.

A lot of big claims in this post, but significantly not a shred of evidence (independent or otherwise) to support them.

I have seen no evidence to support the claim that Hamas is either storing rockets or firing rockets from hospitals, yet the IDF has launched at least 22 separate targetted attacks against hospitals in Gaza during the current round of fighting. I have seen no evidence to support the claim that schools being used as civilian refuges are used to store or fire rockets. I have seen verified claims that three vacant UN schools were used to store rockets, but the IDF has repeatedly attacked UN , deliberately targetting civilian schools being used as safe zones for displaced civilians. I have seen no evidence that Hamas is using Gazans as human shields but every independent journalist who has investigated this claim has reported finding no evidence to support it.

I have asserted above that the strategy the IDF is using in Gaza is textbook terrorism, and challenged any one to disprove that claim. See post # 628 above for full details. Not a single pro-Zionist poster has attempted to disprove my assertion. You too are welcome to try to disprove this claim - if you can.

So all the evidence I have seen strongly supports the claim that the IDF is using classic terrorist tactics in its current campaign. Hamas has a legal of self defence against an occupation force occupying its land, Israel has a legal right of self defence against Hamas rockets but not in defence of its illegal occupation of foreign territory. Any measures taken under this right must be proportional to the Hamas attacks. There is no way any one can argue that the IDF's actions are proportionate to Hamas' attacks - they are overwhelmingly disproportionate. Hamas thus appears to be acting on stronger legal ground than the IDF (provided their actions are in accordance with the laws of warfare).

Both the IDF and Hamas are guilty of using terrorist tactics and strategies, both are committing war crimes as a matter of routine, both are targetting civilians and civilian infrastructure, both are behaving like terrorists, both the IDF and Hamas are terrorists, if that term has any meaning any more. Unless you (or other posters) can produce some credible evidence to the contrary, it seems impossible to avoid concluding that there is a precise moral equivalence between the IDF and Hamas.

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ORIGINAL: BamaD

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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

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ORIGINAL: subrosaDom


when there is no more more equivalence between them than between the Axis and the Allies.

Of course there is. What? You think because it's 'the allies' we were all peace and love? Surely you understand that Britain fought to maintain its empire and keep the Germans from the French coast and threatening our trade; while the Americans also fought to extend their sphere of influence.

Look, I wouldn't put myself down as a moral relativist but, Christ, claiming Britain and the Americans are 'a pack of canny lads saving the world' is bordering on lunacy. The British and the Americans simply package it differently and it has been long understood that people are easily impressed with the packaging.

No matter what you say the Axis was far worse than the Allies.
You ignore that the British were protecting the empire they already had, they weren't trying to build one;
You forget that England and France spent the 30's accommodating Hitler.
You forget that Germany invaded Poland, and France not the other way around.
You forget Pearl Harbor.
You must to place any remote equivalence between the two.
Then there is the death camps, just when did they Allies set theirs up.
Moral relativist, like terrorists never see themselves as such.

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ORIGINAL: NorthernGent

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ORIGINAL: subrosaDom


when there is no more more equivalence between them than between the Axis and the Allies.

Of course there is. What? You think because it's 'the allies' we were all peace and love? Surely you understand that Britain fought to maintain its empire and keep the Germans from the French coast and threatening our trade; while the Americans also fought to extend their sphere of influence.

Look, I wouldn't put myself down as a moral relativist but, Christ, claiming Britain and the Americans are 'a pack of canny lads saving the world' is bordering on lunacy. The British and the Americans simply package it differently and it has been long understood that people are easily impressed with the packaging.

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ORIGINAL: mnottertail

do you have anything from the last 1000 years on Israelis?

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Most definitions of terrorism are something along the lines of 'Terrorism is the use of violence targeting civilians for political purposes'. If we can agree on that definition can you explain to me how the Dahiya doctrine, which the IDF is obviously employing in Gaza now can be any thing other than terrorism?

[T]he Dahiya doctrine is: " [....]asymmetric warfare in an urban setting, in which the army deliberately targets civilian infrastructure, as a means of inducing suffering for the civilian population, thereby establishing deterrence"
"The first public announcement of the doctrine was made by General Gadi Eizenkot, commander of the IDF's northern front, in October 2008. He said that what happened in the Dahiya (also transliterated as Dahiyeh and Dahieh) quarter of Beirut in 2006 would, "happen in every village from which shots were fired in the direction of Israel. We will wield disproportionate power against [them] and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases. [...] This isn't a suggestion. It's a plan that has already been authorized. [...] Harming the population is the only means of restraining Nasrallah."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine
To me all that sounds and looks like textbook classic terrorism. So can you explain why the IDF shouldn't be regarded as terrorists?

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ORIGINAL: tweakabelle

I think we can all agree that the 'Dahiya doctrine' is a purely Israeli invention.

This doctrine, which governs Israeli planning, strategy and the execution of those plans and strategies in Gaza at the moment, is an integral part of a challenge I issued 3 days ago, initially to BamaD, then also to DomKen and ultimately to any and every one :

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Most definitions of terrorism are something along the lines of 'Terrorism is the use of violence targeting civilians for political purposes'. If we can agree on that definition can you explain to me how the Dahiya doctrine, which the IDF is obviously employing in Gaza now can be any thing other than terrorism?

[T]he Dahiya doctrine is: " [....]asymmetric warfare in an urban setting, in which the army deliberately targets civilian infrastructure, as a means of inducing suffering for the civilian population, thereby establishing deterrence"
"The first public announcement of the doctrine was made by General Gadi Eizenkot, commander of the IDF's northern front, in October 2008. He said that what happened in the Dahiya (also transliterated as Dahiyeh and Dahieh) quarter of Beirut in 2006 would, "happen in every village from which shots were fired in the direction of Israel. We will wield disproportionate power against [them] and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases. [...] This isn't a suggestion. It's a plan that has already been authorized. [...] Harming the population is the only means of restraining Nasrallah."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_doctrine
To me all that sounds and looks like textbook classic terrorism. So can you explain why the IDF shouldn't be regarded as terrorists?

To date, neither BamaD nor DomKen has responded to this challenge. Nor has any of the few remaining other apologists for Israeli terror.* Clearly they are either unwilling or unable to issue a response (coherent or otherwise) to this question. One is forced by their silence to conclude that they have no reasonable or compelling response - their silence is a tacit admission that they too realise that the IDF is indistinguishable from any other terrorist band of thugs - better trained, better equipped but nonetheless terrorists.

For obvious political reasons, they are reluctant to state this in black and white. Hence their silence - a silence that speaks volumes. If Israel's few remaining apologists are unable to contest the proposition that the IDF is a terrorist force and behaving like one in Gaza, doesn't that tell us all we need to know about this conflict?

* By the way the challenge is still open to any one who wishes to contest the proposition that the IDF is a terrorist force.

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Israeli does not target civilians to cause terror (as does Hamas) -- they do it to root out Hamas's terrorist infrastructure

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If Hamas had placed its military infrastructure anywhere but in schools, hospitals and civilian buildings, then the Dahiya doctrine would not argue for targeting it.