Israel v Hamas

I predict death, destruction, carnage, and that'll be just from this thread.

 

It will go to a replay and then won't finish on penalties.

 

Will Gazza be making a comeback?

 

Hamas will only win if they play on the counterattack and make cunning use of their substitutions.

 

I think all that needs saying is that nobody will agree on anything.

 

Hamas' 3-5-2 has been found out. Sacked by November.

 

I heard it was black september.

 

See end of Russia v Ukraine thread.

 

The more I read about this conflict the more I feel the need to get all leaders from both sides and bang their bl**dy heads together. You can't take sides in this as one side has all of the Arab world trying to destroy them and the other side has sanctions so bad that they were pushed into a corner where all choice but violence was removed. Someone needs to grow a pair and get a truce sorted ASAP. It's now gone beyond all reason on both sides.

 

The Jewish are a nasty greedy.

 

72 hour ceasefire has been agreed.

 

The Israelis are no angels, but neither are Hamas.

I tend to believe the reports that are saying that Hamas are using the innocent refugees basically as human shields, by deliberately launching their rocket attacks against the Israelis from positions near the buildings that are housing the refugees.

Hamas don't really care about ordinary Palestinians, they are only interested in their cause. Therefore I think they see what they are doing as a win win situation, because if the Israelis do not return fire they are safe, but if the Israelis do return fire they are seen as the bad guys.

Ideally, like most of us I want a peaceful solution, but this conflict has been going on for so long I don't think either side really knows what they are fighting about any more, therefore I don't see peace prevailing any time soon.

 

I agree. They should use those wide open spaces that Gaza is famous for

 

Or they could just stop firing rockets!

 

At least they generally finish their sentences. Whilst it's not entirely clear what you were going to say it is clear that you can do one.

 

Kind of ironic he's called David.

 

Part of me thinks we should let them get on with it and wipe each other off the face of the earth. Neither side will tolerate the other and if we can make a few quid from them selling arms then so be it.

My much smaller sensitive side suggests that we need to stop this now. Feck knows what we can do though short of going in ourselves and we don't have a good track record in such things.

Did anyone hear/read about this chap?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-28580023

The Mayor of Tower Hamlets displaying the Palestinian Flag on the town hall. The bloke needs to be sacked immediately. Anything other than the national flag should not be hung from government buildings imho.

 

Hamas are the majority party in the Palistinian Parliament, so they do have some kind of mandate from the Palestinian people for their actions (rightly or wrongly) However, I don't think there have been any elections since 2006.

 

Ceasefire lasted 4 hours...

 

They narrowly won and afterwards killed members of the opposing party and seized control through violent means. Since then they've refused to hold democratic elections for the last 9 years.

Such a shame. BBC reporting it was Hamas militants in a tunnel in israel who'd not heard about the ceasefire yet.

 

According to Reuters an Israeli tank opened fire to break it..........

 

Obviously it’s an impossible situation.

I suppose you have to look at both the facts, as well as the bigger picture/ motivations.

If you just look at facts, the Israelis are the bad guys, as the death toll is so much higher on the Palestinian side. And this cannot be ignored, no matter what anyone argues. If there is one thing we learnt from WW2, it is that although soldiers loss of life is terrible, civilians lives are the biggest tragedy of war. It looks like a bunch of poor kids throwing rocks over a wall hitting nobody, and rockets being returned hitting schools. No matter what argument you give, you cannot argue that Israel has not made grave mistakes. They have killed far too many for far too little gain. Hamas’ rockets hardly even reach Israeli settlements.

However, Israel do not want to kill civilians. It turns the world against them, including some of their closest allies. It only damages them. They have this force that want to destroy them, and even if they try to co-inhabit, still will not stop until they are destroyed. They have tried to give back land and the Palestinians keep going, they have tried to help develop Palestine and Hamas have used the money for weapons and tunnels, they have tried to warn of attacks, but Hamas tell their own people to stay, as the only people who benefit from Palestinian deaths are Hamas. If they are trying to kill Palestinians they are incredibly bad at it, more Muslims were killed in a month by ISIS and in Syria than in the last two decades by Israelis in Gaza.

You have a group who are being brainwashed to die for their God, in order to take back holy land. And it is not difficult to brainwash, like many long running wars, there is too much entrenched grief and anger to let it subside, especially with a lack of education and a future for many Palestinians.

Whose fault is it? Well ours. The Western world. Why on earth did we think it would be okay to steal some of their holiest land, and place their long running enemies there? And then arming one side with high tech weapons (including nuclear ones!?) and funding rapid development. Utter madness, I can say with vast hindsight.

I read somewhere that when considering all the places to make a Jewish homeland, they considered Madagascar. Could you imagine how many lives that could have saved...

 

Relocation sounds great, but isn't the problem that Israel also considers Jerusalem to be their "Holy Land" as well?

 

It's very hard to know what to believe as there will be propaganda on both sides. I agree that Israel isn't justified in blowing up kids if they are being used in human shields. However, if they warn in advance that they are going to blow up a playground because Hamas are using it as a launch site for rockets, and Hamas deliberately ignore that warning and don't evacuate because they want to make the Israelis look as barbaric as possible, then that is unforgivable on behalf of Hamas.

As always, it's hard to know what the real truth is.

 

No personal criticism meant, but it is absolutely so. Israel gives clear and early warnings to civilians to leave certain areas and the poor devils are herded back by hamas, who without a doubt want these people to die for propaganda purposes. Not well reported , but yesterday hamas executed 20 civilians for partaking of an anti war/hamas demonstration. Also, NATO have found an hamas arms cache in one of their schools.
One thing I find strange, is that none of Israels critics offer a realistic solution to their dilemma, that is hamas constantly firing rockets into Israeli territory. I wonder what the UKs response would be, after all we were hardly gentle in Northern Ireland.

 

Yep - I would consider destruction of a Hamas tunnel to be a violation of a ceasefire in itself.

 

Reuters reporting that Israel was searching for tunnels, not destroying them, when militants popped out and attacked and killed 2 Israeli soldiers.

Searching for tunnels isn't breaking a ceasefire to me at least.

 

I'm pro them growing up and sorting it out. Don't know enough to side with either and I would think the rest of the world would have worked it out if there was a genuine right and wrong party in the situation.