Israel: Operation Protective Edge

[zolace]

Hasn't worked too well in over 50 years, seems like a new tactic should be called for.

And your grand strategy for conflict has already been utilized over the course of decades in the Sudan, probably to the best that anyone could hope to realistically utilize it. Bashir literally got away with genocide and ethnic cleansing and has been since 1989. And it has completely failed him. Sure he has been able to stay in power, but he lost the southern half of his country, and is losing control of a half dozen other internal states as well.

It simply doesn't work; and now when Bashir has tried to backtrack he's found the SPLM-N announce today that it is joining forced with the Janjaweed against Khartoum. He ended up losing control of his own monsters.

You also mentioned Sri Lanka? That ended, but it took 26 years. Not really a big win, and even now the harshness of how it ended is causing domestic problems. In fact there were warnings of rising extremism just today within Sri Lanka over clashes which have threatened the country with renewed instability.

It took 26 years because they kept getting distracted by Western bleeding hearts forcing them into peace talks. When they finally decided to just crush the Tamils, it worked fairly quickly. Sudan doesn’t have anything remotely close to Israel’s overwhelming conventional force either, so it’s a bad example.

You can’t realistically hope to stop insurgencies by providing a “legitimate alternative.” It’s basically never worked in a situation like Israel-Palestine. OTOH, the brute force method worked well in the North Caucasus in the 1940s and has been a lot more effective at pacifying Chechnya compared to American efforts in Afghanistan. It also did pretty well in 1991 when Saddam crushed Shia uprisings against his rule that, at their peak, caused him to lose control of the vast majority of Iraq.

[zolace]

Seems a bit disingenuous to compare a formal war with an insurgency and terrorist related violence. The two aren't fought in the same way. Nor are they fought with the same weapons. You're stuck on WWII but it isn't the 40's anymore.

Not really. You can fight an insurgency with the same weapons one would use in a conventional war. Russia did so quite nicely in Chechnya by using massive conventional firepower on Grozny and other insurgent-held, civilian-populated targets. Indeed, the sheer indiscriminate nature, destruction, and terror imposed on the civilian population helps to deter their resistance.

I’d suggest the fact that the Allies demonstrated a pretty clear resolve that killing civilians to achieve victory was acceptable is the entire reason why World War II was so successful while Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were not. Perhaps if America had opened up the war by turning Kandahar into a firestorm like Dresden, it would have sent a clearer message of what the price of attacking America is.

[bryant.coleman]

Not really. You can fight an insurgency with the same weapons one would use in a conventional war. Russia did so quite nicely in Chechnya by using massive conventional firepower on Grozny and other insurgent-held, civilian-populated targets. Indeed, the sheer indiscriminate nature, destruction, and terror imposed on the civilian population helps to deter their resistance.

And the Groznyy bombing was a complete failure. Ordered by that drunkard Yeltsin, the bombings killed tens of thousands of civilians, most of whom were ethnic Russians with anti-separatist leanings (esp. children and the elderly). One of the reasons why more than 75% of those killed during the Chechen wars were ethnic Russians.

The bombings had no effect on the rebels, as very few ethnic Chechens died during that.

[Alphi]

I’d suggest the fact that the Allies demonstrated a pretty clear resolve that killing civilians to achieve victory was acceptable is the entire reason why World War II was so successful while Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were not. Perhaps if America had opened up the war by turning Kandahar into a firestorm like Dresden, it would have sent a clearer message of what the price of attacking America is.

this is completely off topic and complete garbage.
Frankly I find the suggestion that Genocide is a solution to be very offensive.

WWII was resolved with finality because there were only 2 empires that controlled half of the world.
German and Japan..

both Germany and Japan were controlled from the top, they were both dictatorships with rigid hierarchies so once you removed the will to fight from the top the war was over.

This is not how insurgencies and guerrilla wars like vietnam and afghanistan operate.
the power structure is divided into cells there is no central control.

the Americans did try scorched earth in vietnam and it failed. it failed because it only fuelled the resolve of people of Vietnam to resist the invasion. and by the way Vietnam never attacked america.. they had no business being there at all..

movements like Hamas and now the problems in Fundamentalists in Iraq are like Hydras.. you cut off one head and another one grows.
it doesn't matter how many people you kill the more violent path is always doomed to fail because the more innocents you kill the more it turns the people against you and the people are the ones providing the soldiers not the military.

frankly Isreal are recklessly ignorant for not knowing this... but then again.. most right wing politicians are.. they stoke war because it is the warmongers that vote for them in the elections.

the way to deal with any insurgency is to convince the insurgents that life is better on your side.
this is how Communist Vietnam while having defeated the USA was actually eventually won over by them in the end.

this is how china and russia moved away from stalinism to embrace the free market.
the cold war was won with carrots not with sticks. The russians knew that they couldn't keep building weapons as their standard of living was declining.. and the Chinese knew they were falling behind economically.

if the Irealis really wanted lasting peace then they would help the people of gaza.. and I mean genuinely help the people.. but they do not want lasting peace they just want status quo. Which is: a state of the jews, for the jews and encompassing all the lands that were once held by jews 2000 years ago. they don't want Palestinians to come and live with them as equals with full equal rights and they don't want to give up the settlements in the west bank... neither of those options is acceptable to the Zionist movement.  An Isreal where the jews are in the minority is unthinkable and so is an isreal on only half of gods land.

Isreal has no carrot to give the Palestinians that is why they always use the stick.
and this is why they will eventually lose.

because what they are doing is immoral, unjust, unethical and unsustainable.
as for Hamas, they will lose too for the same reasons.

[Chef Ramsay]

World suspension of Israel flights a 'great victory': Hamas

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Hamas said Wednesday that the suspension of international flights to and from Israel over security concerns about Gaza rocket fire was a "great victory."

"The success of Hamas in closing Israeli airspace is a great victory for the resistance, and is the crown of Israel's failure," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement.

A rocket fired from the embattled Palestinian territory hit near Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport on Tuesday, prompting US and European airlines to suspend all flights to and from the Jewish state.

The flight ban was still in place on Wednesday, as Israel bombarded Gaza for a 16th straight day in an operation to stop rocket fire and destroy tunnels constructed by Hamas, the main power in the territory.

More and video...http://news.yahoo.com/world-suspension-israel-flights-great-victory-hamas-161508458.html

[Chef Ramsay]

Jihadi cleric calls for Muslim fighters to join the fighting in Gaza By ARIEL BEN SOLOMON

"Our heart yearns to arrive and fight the sons and brothers of the apes and pigs," says rebel fighter. isis caliphate

“Oh our brothers in Gaza, know that you are fighting an enemy following Satan’s path, whereas you are fighting in the way of [Allah] the merciful,” Maqdisi said.

He added that he and his fighters want to join the fighting in Gaza.

“True, we are fighting in Syria, but our heart yearns to arrive and fight the sons and brothers of the apes and pigs [the Jews],” MEMRI reported Maqdisi as saying The jihadi cleric said that Gazans must be patient and wait for either victory or martyrdom, adding that Allah will soon send “extraordinary soldiers who will fight and defeat the Jews.”

“The days of defeats have passed. Our concept today is offensive and therefore you must attack them [the Jews] so they won’t attack you, hold on, fortify yourself and trust in Allah so you may succeed,” Maqdisi said.

He threatened Israel, stating that the Jews will not be able to sleep because of the sounds of artillery, and that soldiers will reach and destroy them.

Calling on Muslims to help the struggle in Gaza, he said, “If you help them, Allah will help you, if you abandon them, Allah will abandon you. The choice is yours because on Judgment Day they will ask you did you help the Gazans or the men of al-Sham or not.”

http://www.jpost.com/Operation-Protective-Edge/Jihadi-cleric-calls-for-Muslim-fighters-to-join-the-fighting-in-Gaza-368628

[iwhoss]

w?

[raganius]

U.N.: 1 child killed in Gaza every hour
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/palestinian-child-killed-every-2-hours-in-gaza-un-israel-hamas

Last Updated Jul 23, 2014 1:00 PM EDT

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Israeli troops battled Hamas militants on Wednesday near a southern Gaza Strip town as the U.S. secretary of state flew into Israel to press top-gear efforts for a truce in the conflict that has so far killed at least 657 Palestinians and 31 Israelis.

Neither side appeared to be backing down, after Palestinian rocket fire led several international airlines to cancel flights to Tel Aviv and Israeli troops clashed with Hamas near the Gaza town of Khan Younis in heavy fighting that forced dozens of families to flee. Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal later demanded Gaza's borders be open and an end to the blockade against it, calling Palestinians "the true owners of the land."

Trapped by the fighting in Khan Younis, a town on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, dozens of Palestinian families scrambled to flee the area.
 
John Kerry landed in Tel Aviv despite a Federal Aviation Administration ban following a Hamas rocket near the airport the day before, reflecting his determination to achieve a cease-fire agreement between the warring sides as international organizations, the United Nations and the U.S. government expressed mounting concern over the toll on Palestinian civilians.

"One child has been killed in Gaza every hour for the past two days," said a statement released Wednesday by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

According to OCHA, "a request for a humanitarian pause has been rejected by the Israeli authorities."

(...)

[zyj3000]

History of the Israeli Palestinian Conflict

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9Q_8ZrYku4

[zyj3000]

when there is bad news for bitcoin, it will become headlines in the mainstream media around the world; when there is good news for bitcoin, the mainstream media keep quiet
until today, many ignorant people still think bitcoin had gone bankrupt when mtgox collapse

wake up people, don't trust everything you read in the mainstream media

[zyj3000]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbHSiQyCPTw

[zyj3000]

An honest Israeli Jew tells the Real Truth about Israel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etXAm-OylQQ

[Starscream]

An honest Israeli Jew tells the Real Truth about Israel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etXAm-OylQQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b2QhQQpHck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2ftGzKVDAs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR-jMY9e5wI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fbDjpbBHb4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-vXD84Pv0I

[zyj3000]

An honest Israeli Jew tells the Real Truth about Israel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etXAm-OylQQ

this news suits you

http://www.ibtimes.com/bitcoin-terrorist-threat-counterterrorism-program-names-virtual-currencies-area-interest-1579699

[Alphi]

An honest Israeli Jew tells the Real Truth about Israel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etXAm-OylQQ

Miko is son of an IDF general, served in the IDF for many years and his grandfather was one of the founding fathers of Isreal.
if you cant listen to a guy who's entire family served Isreal with their lives then who can you listen to?

[umair127]

It is largely Jihadi Salafi groups firing the rockets, groups that are actually opposed to Hamas, which is why it is easier to recognize the overzealous targeting of Hamas in the campaign. the same was true of their search for and accusations surrounding the missing students which third party groups claimed responsibility for, but which Netanyahu took the opportunity to blame on Hamas instead and used it as a justification to illegally harass and target Hamas affiliates.

Easy. Because these Salafist groups are operating because of either the incompetence of Hamas, or their weakness, and because of the acquiescence or support of the civilian population.
Collective responsibility merits collective punishment. Gaza's population supported Hamas, and acquiesces to, if not outright supports the Salafists. It makes absolute sense to hold them collectively responsible for allowing terrorists to operate amongst them.

There's never been a good example of an occupying force succeeding with a population-centric counter insurgency strategy. The most successful examples of crushing insurgencies, like Sri Lanka, involved a willingness to use violence and force to achieve victory.

You're contradicting yourself here, Salafists tend to hate the Muslim Brotherhood. Claiming that the Gazan population loves both the Salafists and Hamas doesn't make any sense. It's also dumb to assume that just because a group operates within a territory that 1.) the government likes them and 2.) that the population likes them. I'm pretty sure that the people who suffer from Mayi Mayi attacks in the DRC don't do so with smiles. Nor does it make sense to bomb government forces that are aligned against them if your goal is to see them destroyed. It's pretty dumb to bomb Kinshasa and kill their soldiers while asking them why they aren't able to kill off the M23 rebels.

Collective responsibility merits collective punishment. Gaza's population supported Hamas, and acquiesces to, if not outright supports the Salafists. It makes absolute sense to hold them collectively responsible for allowing terrorists to operate amongst them.

Of course using collective punishment like that in the Congo is stupid. It would be stupid to kill civilians in Herat or other non-Pashtun regions of Afghanistan in response to the Taliban’s insurgency for the same reason. In either case, they’re far removed from the conflict and don’t really have the ability to intervene.

In contrast, the Salafists are operating amongst civilians in Gaza. The civilians aren’t making any serious attempt to stop them and in all probability, are actively aiding them. If the M23 were getting support from particular villages, then it would make sense to target those civilians. Similarly, Pashtun villages that collaborate with insurgents should be demolished by carpet bombing. Gaza’s civilians must be taught to stop supporting people who attack Israel, so it makes sense to collectively punish them.

Personally, I’d be far less restrained than the Israelis were being if insurgents in some neighboring country were firing rockets at mine.

1.) You're still contradicting yourself when it comes to then notion of dual Palestinian support for both Hamas and Salafi organizations. The two are diametrically opposed to and hate one another. Suggesting that everyone in Gaza supports both is silly because that's not the kind of relationship that the Brotherhood has with Salafis. They don't even have the same goals; Salafis are against the idea of a Palestinian state and don't support working through government mechanisms in Gaza, so claiming that they support Hamas: a political governmental organization aiming to establish a Palestinian state, is more than a bit off.

2.) The notion of collective responsibility is the same exact justification that the Al Qassam brigade uses to justify launching rockets at Israeli civilians. Congratulations, you're a supporter of terrorism.

3.) The concept of collective responsibility in Gaza doesn't even make any sense seeing as how it ignores the fact that Hamas doesn't rule there with the direct consent of the people. They weren't elected overlords of Gaza and there was no referendum on rocket attacks. They seized Gaza by force after the civil conflict with Fatah. Even outside of this, the notion of collective responsibility and thus the oking of collective punishment is not recognized as valid or legal under either international law, or Israeli law.

[umair127]

Of course using collective punishment like that in the Congo is stupid. It would be stupid to kill civilians in Herat or other non-Pashtun regions of Afghanistan in response to the Taliban’s insurgency for the same reason. In either case, they’re far removed from the conflict and don’t really have the ability to intervene.

We saw the kind of collective punishment that you are advocating take place in the Congo, and all it did was intensify the fighting and cause the creation of more militant groups through the establishment of self-defense Mai-Mai militias. What you're advocating is nothing new in conflict, indeed it is well understood and it has been found to be both ineffective as a general practice and highly immoral.

In contrast, the Salafists are operating amongst civilians in Gaza. The civilians aren’t making any serious attempt to stop them and in all probability, are actively aiding them.

Salafists are arrested and killed in Gaza all of the time.

If the M23 were getting support from particular villages, then it would make sense to target those civilians.

They were and from specific countries as well (Rwanda) and they did target said civilians and guess what? it made the fighting worse and saw a blooming of new militia groups increasing the instability in the Kivus. Your policy failed.

[umair127]

Similarly, Pashtun villages that collaborate with insurgents should be demolished by carpet bombing. Gaza’s civilians must be taught to stop supporting people who attack Israel, so it makes sense to collectively punish them.

Once again, this policy has been tried by the Assad Administration in Syria, the Bashir Administration in the Sudan and the Maliki Administration in Iraq (all have used indiscriminate bombing, particularly the use of barrel bombs) and it has done little but backfire on all of them.

Personally, I’d be far less restrained than the Israelis were being if insurgents in some neighboring country were firing rockets at mine

And then you'd end up generating massive amounts of sympathy for your enemy allowing them to leverage that political capital into obtaining their objectives over your desires and you'd end up either marginalized (having failed your country) or even possibly at the ICC. Your tactics are especially poor because they completely ignore international response. In your make believe world you seem to have the ability to do whatever you want without having to worry about any sort of domestic or international political consequences. A nice fiction, but the world doesn't really work that way.

It took 26 years because they kept getting distracted by Western bleeding hearts forcing them into peace talks. When they finally decided to just crush the Tamils, it worked fairly quickly. Sudan doesn’t have anything remotely close to Israel’s overwhelming conventional force either, so it’s a bad example.

Sure they did, especially when Libya was in Sudan as well. What really held them up though was international interference by other countries, which is what tends to happen when you act like a ruthless dictator.

[umair127]

Hasn't worked too well in over 50 years, seems like a new tactic should be called for.

And your grand strategy for conflict has already been utilized over the course of decades in the Sudan, probably to the best that anyone could hope to realistically utilize it. Bashir literally got away with genocide and ethnic cleansing and has been since 1989. And it has completely failed him. Sure he has been able to stay in power, but he lost the southern half of his country, and is losing control of a half dozen other internal states as well.

It simply doesn't work; and now when Bashir has tried to backtrack he's found the SPLM-N announce today that it is joining forced with the Janjaweed against Khartoum. He ended up losing control of his own monsters.

You also mentioned Sri Lanka? That ended, but it took 26 years. Not really a big win, and even now the harshness of how it ended is causing domestic problems. In fact there were warnings of rising extremism just today within Sri Lanka over clashes which have threatened the country with renewed instability.

It took 26 years because they kept getting distracted by Western bleeding hearts forcing them into peace talks. When they finally decided to just crush the Tamils, it worked fairly quickly. Sudan doesn’t have anything remotely close to Israel’s overwhelming conventional force either, so it’s a bad example.

You can’t realistically hope to stop insurgencies by providing a “legitimate alternative.” It’s basically never worked in a situation like Israel-Palestine. OTOH, the brute force method worked well in the North Caucasus in the 1940s and has been a lot more effective at pacifying Chechnya compared to American efforts in Afghanistan. It also did pretty well in 1991 when Saddam crushed Shia uprisings against his rule that, at their peak, caused him to lose control of the vast majority of Iraq.

On the contrary, we've seen that happen all of the time. It was such a method that has caused large swaths of the JEM to finally stop rebelling in Darfur and allow themselves to be absorbed into the Sudanese army. Chechnya and the north Caucuses are hardly stable, and comparing them to the US in Afghanistan is dumb, they are vastly different style of conflicts and the tactics have nothing to do with those differences.

[umair127]

Seems a bit disingenuous to compare a formal war with an insurgency and terrorist related violence. The two aren't fought in the same way. Nor are they fought with the same weapons. You're stuck on WWII but it isn't the 40's anymore.

Not really. You can fight an insurgency with the same weapons one would use in a conventional war. Russia did so quite nicely in Chechnya by using massive conventional firepower on Grozny and other insurgent-held, civilian-populated targets. Indeed, the sheer indiscriminate nature, destruction, and terror imposed on the civilian population helps to deter their resistance.

I’d suggest the fact that the Allies demonstrated a pretty clear resolve that killing civilians to achieve victory was acceptable is the entire reason why World War II was so successful while Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were not. Perhaps if America had opened up the war by turning Kandahar into a firestorm like Dresden, it would have sent a clearer message of what the price of attacking America is.

That worked out well for him didn't it? Considering he's dead and all and a Shia government is now in power in Iraq. And yet it is still unstable and isolated to this day. Good work