Screw them, hoarding all the food there. I'll bet they had enough food for thousands, if not millions.

I'm glad Israel is exposing these criminals (IDF only attacks criminals) and showing the world what kind of evil, sick people are there. They deserve it, let the phosphorus rain down upon them like napalm!

Screw them, hoarding all the food there. I'll bet they had enough food for thousands, if not millions.

I'm glad Israel is exposing these criminals (IDF only attacks criminals) and showing the world what kind of evil, sick people are there. They deserve it, let the phosphorus rain down upon them like napalm!

^ Yes! All those UN employees and camera-carrying journalists have been terrorizing IDF's war agenda for years now. They must be stopped!

Shooting ambulance drivers wasn't enough. They had to drop chemical weapons on the aid food and gas stored at the UN HQ bldg.

AFP has called for a boycott of IDF photos and video due to their shooting and targeting housing complexes for journalists like AP reuters.

But there have been at least 10 Israeli casualties so far (only seven of them have been from friendly fire)

In response to the comment about terminology.

Would it seem rational to you if the Israeli PM or government official stood before the international community and declare that their objective is full scale annihilation of a people? Only then, would you call it genocide or ethnic cleansing?
Politicians declare many things, but I would hope sentient human beings are able to critically analyze the world around them. How many women and children need to die for people to recognize them as humans? Or would the Israeli PM need to stand up and declare their humanity for you to believe they are entitled to human rights?

I challenge you to think past the rhetoric and construct a terminology that you find adequate for the situation. But as I sit at this computer musing over word choice, the IDF bombars Gaza-- a city that has been under strict economic deprivation for more than two year--from air, sea, and ground, using chemical weapons on a mainly civilian population, 1033 people are dead, more than 4000 are wounded (which a generous estimate of 50% noncombatants) and the US continues to send M16s. Effectively, a large population of a given people are being killed.

And you want to quibble over terminology?

Well, we both know, and Israel knows, that nearly all of the people in Gaza can't leave. All of the nations in the middle east, friend to Israel or friend to any faction of the Palestinians, will not accept any large number of refugees beyond those already present in their country (and are in fact unlikely to grant citizenship to the refugees already there).

Honestly, I think that there is no and never was a clear consensus amongst Israeli leadership as to the exit strategy for this campaign. I think everyone involved agreed that some form of military response was necessary/called for, and that they all had and have different ideas of how they want it to end.

Hamas is in the position of balancing further casualties and suffering amongst their members and constituency against the possible goodwill they can gain in the region by mimicking Lebanon's performance in the previous war.

To be entirely blunt, the Palestinians in Gaza (including Hamas) have been losing a lot, and stand to lose a lot more if the IDF pushes forward.
I think the likely "out" in the near term (and possibly the endgame that a majority of Israeli leadership is pursuing) is that a sufficiently large majority of Hamas operatives in Gaza will decide that it is in their best interests to reach a compromise that accedes to some but not all of Israel's demands.

Joedirt, Hamas leadership in Syria has consistently refused a ceasefire without Israel first completely withdrawing, which I think is rather unrealistic.
This Arabic daily criticizes Hamas leadership for obstructing cease-fire negotiations (see the bottom) http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=2&id=15352
Here's the Telegraph, saying that there is division as to a cease-fire between the Syrian leadership of Hamas and the leadership on the ground in Gaza http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4240932/Analysis-The-choices-confronting-Hamas.html

In the long term? Personally, I had been thinking that unilateral distancing by Israel was a positive step towards peace. However, if Israel leaves open any significant access to Palestinian territories, additional weapons or weapon-precursors will enter the region and be used against Israel.
As we have seen, Palestinian militants will tunnel or otherwise attempt to circumvent even relatively thorough security procedures put in place by Israel.
This leaves Israel in the unenviable position of deciding whether to leave the Palestinians with relatively open borders, and suffer proportionately more attacks, or completely isolate Gaza (and probably the West Bank as well) in a truly thorough fashion.

This is a classic asymmetric warfare situation, which historically have been very bloody and nigh-impossible to end peacefully. I don't know of any historic examples that didn't end in the militarily superior power either pulling out completely ala Russia in Afghanistan or the U.S. in Vietnam (not a realistic or moral option here) or committing genocide as in many Medieval and Colonial conflicts (also not a realistic or moral option).

To end this before it gets any longer, simply giving the Palestinians a homeland will not bring peace to the region as long as a significant portion of the Palestinian population is willing to pursue the destruction of the state of Israel via violent means.

I do not dispute that there have been a number of bad actors affiliated with Israel. However, I believe from personal experience that the vast majority of Israelis would be happy for the Palestinians to have their own state, but also believe that many Palestinians would continue to pursue the violent destruction of Israel even if they had full sovereignty.

>> ^joedirt:
Holy cow, these people are more nuts then the scientology online brigade of article commenters.
This is sick, and it explains where mharvey came from and why he is posting the official IDF videos.


You two are bufoons. I am a free and independant American.
Get real.
Just because you exhale Hamas talking points upon waking, Dirt, doesn't cause me to think you're a member, just a hapless dupe.

>> ^Pprt:
If you're in a boxing match and the other guy pulls out a blade... only a fool would stick to his fist.


And only a complete psychopath would start throwing grenades around and kill 100 people sitting in the audience of the boxing match. But, your analogy is a little lacking.

Imagine you took a school full of children and you locked all the doors with padlocks, then a teacher inside started shooting at the police. WOULD YOU BOMB THE FUCKING SCHOOOL??!!! You are a psycho for even trying to repeat IDF bullshit.

Holy cow, these people are more nuts then the scientology online brigade of article commenters.

This is sick, and it explains where mharvey came from and why he is posting the official IDF videos.

Ok mharvey, I'll bite... That wikipedia page has to be the weakest "proof" of anti-semitism and I guess it shows that when Israel defenders run into anything even remotely approaching a valid argument they start throwing out this stigma of anti-semite.

The first widespread accusations of anti-Semitism against Buchanan concerned the September 15, 1990, McLaughlin Group program.[124] On it, Buchanan said that "there are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the Middle East -- the Israeli defense ministry and its 'amen corner' in the United States."[124] He also said, "The Israelis want this war desperately because they want the United States to destroy the Iraqi war machine. They want us to finish them off. They don't care about our relations with the Arab world."[124]

This means.. what? I agree with this, so I must also be a jew hater.

I read through that section quickly, and I didn't see any Buchanan words that show some hateful anti-Jew sentiment. I love how idiots mistake being against Israel policies and anti-semitism, or even talking about Hitler historically and philosophically devolves into Godwin's and anti-semitism calls.

It is just sad and weak then your only defense of IDF bombings is ad hom attack on Buchanan must therefore he must be anti-semite.

On the subject, Jews have been around a lot longer then the recent concept of Israel. It was literally a toss up between middle east and south america, so I really can't understand all these anti-zionist colonialism is somehow anti-Jew. Aside from the obvious PR campaign and manipulation of the US politicians, why isn't it bad to be a racist anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian like you are? Everytime you talk about Palestinians as less then human or child-killing, bomb-strapping, human-shielders.. it's 100x worse then what Buchanan said and technically is sounds to me like you are saying "gas them all" (yea for my Godwin's). But the irony is always lost on those spouting IDF propaganda.

The rocket attacks resumed after IDF bombed the tunnel Hamas was building to kidnap and kill more soldiers.

This is no small matter. An IDF soldier taken in an identical 2006 attack is still captive.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1522370/Soldier-kidnapped-and-two-killed-in-Gaza-tunnel-attack.html

So let's not whitewash Hamas' rocket record. They were taking an operational pause to restock.

>> ^Paybackbviously he finds a difference between teenage thugs trying, at a distance, to provoke a slaughter for the benefit of the world media and an attractive young North American reporter (check the camera bag) using said media, in his face, to stop him from shooting. This makes him look like less of the monster Hamas tries to paint him and his army as, IMHO.


Well right that's what I'm saying.

Look, I won't pretend my knowledge of this conflict even scratches the surface of what's going on. But the fact that he did NOT shoot/injure/restrain that person clearly shows he has some sort of moral compass. (Maybe it doesn't agree with yours but it's there)

If the IDF soldier in this video was entirely out for blood and frothing at the mouth to kill people that he hated at the least he would've restrained her in some manner so she would stop interfering.

Hell in America if someone is being arrested or the police are shooting at someone and you stand between the cops and whatever they are doing, media or not, you get thrown in cuffs. Hell we've seen cops arrest you for just VIDEO-TAPING and not even interfering! While their being taped!

Here we have people in the middle of the desert, who weren't shooting live, with no WAY of ever finding out what actually happened should the soldier have chosen to shoot that lady AND the camera man. And he DOESN'T do it?

I seriously think any attempt to vilify the IDF in this video failed and what the camera woman wasn't doing was brave it was stupid. Journalists are meant to observe only.

(If you don't nitpick you can stop reading)
Don't get me wrong if your a Journalist and your reporting on a kitten in a tree and the house behind you catches on fire yes you call the cops and you try to help. But your reporting on the conflict, so why would you STOP the conflict? That's being a participant and it puts her in danger and other journalists as well because they are supposed to maintain neutrality.

Am surprised she wasn't shot. They do it pretty often to Pro-Palestinian supporters or kids they catch throwing the rocks when the cameras are not rolling. The IDF are extremely aggressive with the Palestinians.



Report by Reuter of Palestinian getting shot when in detention.



Israel's Haarrtz covers incidents like this:



The following is video of IDF shooting at demonstrators.

Oh Pallywood? See I don't need to say you're an idiot you just prove it yourself.

Pallywood is an allegation thrown about pro-Israel media watchers like you who armchair events from YouTube videos from sources you don't even know. It's centered around a few events in the entire history of the conflict and hasn't even been touched by CAMERA and MERMI TV because its such a heinous allegation, to claim that the suffering of the Palestinians is staged in anyway.

Why? Because it's fucking stupid. But you buy it willingly. What next you're going to claim the reported deaths are also made up by Pro-Palestinian sources like Red Cross and the UN?

By the way me calling you stupid is not a ad hominim it's just a statement of facts, because you add nothing logical or constructive to the discussions simply a right wing interpretation of the situation that benefits neither Israel nor Palestine.

Yes Hamas is bad, we get the fucking picture. But you can't lance an organization like Hamas out with military action, no bombs, guided missiles or IDf incursions will stop this. Israel went from roundly defeating Arab armies along its entire border zones in the 60s to being unable to stop Hezboallah or Hamas from occasionally firing the odd missile. The unilateral military actions simply don't work, there needs to be a re engagement of how Israel deals with this situation instead of shooting itself in the foot by coming off as a unnecessary aggressor.

But you don't see that and actually think Israel can win this through bombs and war. Israel asked for this and will keep getting it as long as it believes this is the only course of action.

But what do you care right? You can say whatever you want I mean this all really doesn't affect you anyway. So yeah Pallywood and lets kill all the muslims.

Socialists and fascists rejoice - Jihad in Oslo!

Where is BOPE when you need it? Hell, we should maybe get the IDF to come over and teach us how to really deal with these boys and girls.

Funny seeing an immigrant thug telling a Norwegian man to "go home".