Israel: Operation Protective Edge

[kuroman]

^^ Egypt sees Palestinians in Gaza as Hamas supporters. And they don't like Hamas. In fact they are accusing Hamas, which is an ally of Muslim Brotherhood, for terrorist operations on their territory and are actively searching and destroying tunnels connected to Sinai, thus strenghtening economic blockade of Gaza. Egypt is probably one of the last countries who would want to help Palestinians while Hamas is representing them.

If they want help Palestinian they can take back Gaza and fight Hamas, but they won't.

Because Israel will let that happen? and that's only just small hardle of a thousand. You seem to simplify things to much and think this some sort of game..... do some reading get some books from different sources, check out both side narrative, and check if each version corresponds to what's happening on the terran, so you can make a balanced judgement, and right now the Israeli version is full of lies and doesn't hold up and we can compare point by point, if you want and from the start of this current Massacre to this day
1200 Palestiniens died with over 50% of them being Children and Women.

[Nathonas]

You guys might find this video to be very interesting. Israeli Prime Minister talks about their strategy for Palestine off camera. Israel DOESN'T want peace.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrtuBas3Ipw

[zolace]

Tunnels with sewage systems to enable them to stay in them for months.

All that concrete that the international community pressured Israel into giving the 'palestinians' to build homes, has gone into lining their tunnels.

Imagine what they could have done with all the money and energy wasted on digging dozens of tunnels and burying thousands of rocket launchers.

There's a whole city under Gaza of tunnels.

Of course they could have also built bomb shelters for their people - but that would mean they wouldn't have those dead children for propaganda which resonates with the already anti-Israel European mainstream.

[zolace]

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.

1) So where do these Salafists derive support from? Mars? They use civilians as human shields and derive support, or at least acquiescence, of the civilian poulation. Why not hold the civilians responsible for failing to take action against them?

2) I'm aware of that. However, the only question of importance is how to engineer the outcome you want. If the Qassam brigades shoot rockets, or other non-state actors commit acts of terrorism, it's best to throw proportionality out the window and escalate violence to a level they can't match. State actors will have that advantage against non-state ones, and really ought to take advantage of it.

3) The idea is more to deter civilians and punish them for not taking action against the terrorists operating amongst them. I'm completely aware of the fact that it's not consistent with international law, but think that's secondary to defeating this kind of radicalism.

[noviapriani]

Tunnels with sewage systems to enable them to stay in them for months.

All that concrete that the international community pressured Israel into giving the 'palestinians' to build homes, has gone into lining their tunnels.

Imagine what they could have done with all the money and energy wasted on digging dozens of tunnels and burying thousands of rocket launchers.

There's a whole city under Gaza of tunnels.

Of course they could have also built bomb shelters for their people - but that would mean they wouldn't have those dead children for propaganda which resonates with the already anti-Israel European mainstream.

Yes they are. They have nothing to do with the land. They have immigrated from other places, and are forcefully stealing land and systematically violating Palestinian rights. These are facts.


Eventually, this occupation will fail. You can't hide the atrocities anymore. The propaganda doesn't work anymore. Eventually the truth will come out, and this project will fail. If it doesn't fail because of international pressure, it will fail demographically, when Palestinians outnumber the Israelis.

It will fail when Israelis choose to start moving back to European, Western Countries, and Russia, because they don't see any point in living this kind of country. It just isn't sustainable, and they will find better opportunities elsewhere.

[zolace]

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.

We did? The only collective punishment I can recall in the Congo was Mobutu's alliance with the Hutu groups, along with stoking inter-ethnic conflict against the Banyamulenge Tutsis as a play to preserve his power. That backfired horribly when the Banyamulenge aligned with Rwanda and formed the basis of the force that tossed Mobutu out. In any case, it's a really bad example since a lot of the "collective punishment" in the Eastern Congo is just random violence by militias.
So is Hamas too incompetent to stop the rockets, or does it just not care?
The Rwandans also have nowhere near enough power to really control the Congo in the same way the Israelis could deal with Gaza.

[zolace]

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.

The Assad administration is winning, and was essentially forced to use those tactics anyway since he had no realistic alternative except surrender.
Russia in Chechnya was able to use thermobaric bombs on civilian targets, shoot civilians into mass graves, and use home demolitions without any serious international repercussions. Saddam gassed the Kurds without any serious reactions either, so you don't necessarily need a nuclear arsenal to stop international repercussions.
Yes. Libya was stopped by France and Sudan by the USA. Not the best of examples since Sudan is also conventionally weak compared to the Israelis.

[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.

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

The North Caucasus was perfectly stable after Stalin deported all the Chechens to Siberia. Letting them back was a mistake. Compared to the US, Russia did much better in Afghanistan as well.
It only took a US invasion to do it, but hey, clear failure, right?
It's under control. Yes. There are terror threats which emerge from it to impact Russia, but beyond that, it's pretty much been crushed. As long as the US supports Israel, I don't really see them failing. They have survived this long.

[noviapriani]

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

The North Caucasus was perfectly stable after Stalin deported all the Chechens to Siberia. Letting them back was a mistake. Compared to the US, Russia did much better in Afghanistan as well.
It only took a US invasion to do it, but hey, clear failure, right?
It's under control. Yes. There are terror threats which emerge from it to impact Russia, but beyond that, it's pretty much been crushed. As long as the US supports Israel, I don't really see them failing. They have survived this long.

When the US supported long term blitzing of Vietnam, eventually the wee viet-com fellas in tunnels routed the US outta Vietnam with heavy US losses.

When the US occupied Afghanistan for too long it was time to go, allowing the taliban easy access back in.

When the US bombed Iraq senseless and installed a police /troops operation and then left, the insurgents were soon to come back in.

Whatever crazy level of funding the US has given the jews in Israel, eventually from the way the crazy jew is acting in Israel, completely disproportionate in their killing of palestinians, they too are going to fail and will either get nuked or ensconced in too many battles they can't win, upsetting too many arabs.

[Robert Paulson]

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

The North Caucasus was perfectly stable after Stalin deported all the Chechens to Siberia. Letting them back was a mistake. Compared to the US, Russia did much better in Afghanistan as well.
It only took a US invasion to do it, but hey, clear failure, right?
It's under control. Yes. There are terror threats which emerge from it to impact Russia, but beyond that, it's pretty much been crushed. As long as the US supports Israel, I don't really see them failing. They have survived this long.

When the US supported long term blitzing of Vietnam, eventually the wee viet-com fellas in tunnels routed the US outta Vietnam with heavy US losses.

When the US occupied Afghanistan for too long it was time to go, allowing the taliban easy access back in.

When the US bombed Iraq senseless and installed a police /troops operation and then left, the insurgents were soon to come back in.

Whatever crazy level of funding the US has given the jews in Israel, eventually from the way the crazy jew is acting in Israel, completely disproportionate in their killing of palestinians, they too are going to fail and will either get nuked or ensconced in too many battles they can't win, upsetting too many arabs.

they already fought all their Arab neighbors simultaneously and beat them, and that's 50 years ago before they had nukes and the unconditional support of the united states.
it ain't happening, not in our lifetime.

[Chef Ramsay]

Interesting perspective on the Gaza tunnels:

Gaza Tunnels: Used in War, But Built for Economy
Israel's Blockade Was the Birth of Gaza Tunnel System

Israeli officials are making much of the “terror tunnels” coming out of the Gaza Strip into neighboring Israel and Egypt, and presenting the countless number as proof of Hamas’ aggressive intentions toward the two nations.

Yet a casual look at the history of the Gaza tunnel system reveals they were built not for use in war, but for use in peacetime, as a reaction to Israel’s economic blockade, which at times got so intense that simple products like chocolate and noodles were banned as “processed” foods.

The tunnels overwhelmingly go to Egypt, not Israel, and the strip’s entire economy for almost a decade has been built around bringing everything from iPods to entire automobiles into the strip underground, and away from prying eyes.

More...http://news.antiwar.com/2014/07/27/gaza-tunnels-used-in-war-but-built-for-economy/

[kuroman]

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

The North Caucasus was perfectly stable after Stalin deported all the Chechens to Siberia. Letting them back was a mistake. Compared to the US, Russia did much better in Afghanistan as well.
It only took a US invasion to do it, but hey, clear failure, right?
It's under control. Yes. There are terror threats which emerge from it to impact Russia, but beyond that, it's pretty much been crushed. As long as the US supports Israel, I don't really see them failing. They have survived this long.

When the US supported long term blitzing of Vietnam, eventually the wee viet-com fellas in tunnels routed the US outta Vietnam with heavy US losses.

When the US occupied Afghanistan for too long it was time to go, allowing the taliban easy access back in.

When the US bombed Iraq senseless and installed a police /troops operation and then left, the insurgents were soon to come back in.

Whatever crazy level of funding the US has given the jews in Israel, eventually from the way the crazy jew is acting in Israel, completely disproportionate in their killing of palestinians, they too are going to fail and will either get nuked or ensconced in too many battles they can't win, upsetting too many arabs.

they already fought all their Arab neighbors simultaneously and beat them, and that's 50 years ago before they had nukes and the unconditional support of the united states.
it ain't happening, not in our lifetime.

well to be fair it wasn't that hard to be the Arab, as they were fighting each other and never had strong collaboration (and they still to this day and age and most of the conflict is due to borders after Independence), not to mention the strong American and French and UK, intelligence and armament giving by them

[umair127]

what do you think of this? http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/p...ants-ceasefire regardless of the source, do these numbers seem reasonable for you?

[noviapriani]

what do you think of this? http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/p...ants-ceasefire regardless of the source, do these numbers seem reasonable for you?

It's tough for me to tell. Data is always hard to authenticate from Gaza and I haven't been as actively focused on the area as I have in the past. That being said, these numbers are pretty close to what they were back in 2006 with Hamas' takeover of the strip, and back in 2009 during Operation Cast Lead. So they match up with historical polling trends for Gaza's population.

Palestinians in general, but more specifically for this case Gazans have long been predominately against Hamas' use of rockets to attack Israel. Where Hamas has received popular support among Palestinians is not in their terrorist activities, but largely through their provision of social services, the imagery that they were less corrupt than Fatah had been under Arafat, and their assertion that the recognition of Israel should be part of a peace process rather than a precondition to peace talks. These have always been Hamas' main selling points.

[Rigon]

what do you think of this? http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/p...ants-ceasefire regardless of the source, do these numbers seem reasonable for you?

It's tough for me to tell. Data is always hard to authenticate from Gaza and I haven't been as actively focused on the area as I have in the past. That being said, these numbers are pretty close to what they were back in 2006 with Hamas' takeover of the strip, and back in 2009 during Operation Cast Lead. So they match up with historical polling trends for Gaza's population.

Palestinians in general, but more specifically for this case Gazans have long been predominately against Hamas' use of rockets to attack Israel. Where Hamas has received popular support among Palestinians is not in their terrorist activities, but largely through their provision of social services, the imagery that they were less corrupt than Fatah had been under Arafat, and their assertion that the recognition of Israel should be part of a peace process rather than a precondition to peace talks. These have always been Hamas' main selling points.

Though at the same time, while Hamas' attacks are seen as unwanted, the idea of them resisting Israeli domination over them vocally can be supported. The longer the conflict goes on the more I fear that support will increase for Hamas. In fact, if these numbers are true then things haven't shifted as much towards violence as I had feared in terms of public opinion (Then again this isn't taking into account West Bank attitudes). Overall though, Hamas has pretty much had a generally negative approval rating in the Strip for years. The civil war was very divisive.

[noviapriani]

Ah, clicking on the data sets, I see there are other pictures, and there you can clearly see the desire for resistance among Gazans (expressed here as non-violent resistance) but not necessarily for conflict or the use of Qassam rockets. there tends to be Palestinian dissatisfaction over the issue of resistance, with Hamas engaging in unpopular rocket attacks and being seen as too violent, while Abbas can be seen as not resistant enough and too compliant with Israel to the point of being considered by some to be an Israeli puppet (not my opinion). The data also shows both safety concerns and corruption as key issues for Palestinians as well, which, as I said, was Hamas' main selling point in the last elections. Overall though, Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip was never supported by a majority of either Palestinians or Gazans.

[umair127]

that all seems like cause for hope, no?

[noviapriani]

that all seems like cause for hope, no?

I don't find myself very hopeful no. It is nice to see that the trends have stayed the same which means that there is a larger window for opportunity for peace than I had hoped for, but the reality is that conditions within Israeli politics are no where near where they need to be in order for an honest peace process to take place that will lead to some sort of real engagement and results. In fact, they've only gotten worse over time with the rise of conservative parties in Israel, which has afforded them more ease in forming truly conservative coalitions to the point where the current Israeli government under Netanyahu doesn't even pretend to want a two state solution. It isn't their official stance at all. Netanyahu's official stance (which is also Likud's) is permanent occupation, and among his coalition that stance is one of the more moderate ones.

[noviapriani]

This entire escalation of violence is nothing new. It has been pretty predictable and cyclical and it doesn't show much evidence of changing. The unity government was an important step, but it is hard to say how much this current disruption will prevent the unity government from taking future diplomatic action. Netanyahu cracked down on Hamas on purpose (one of the main contributing factors to the resumed fighting) because it was threatened by the unity government, and they have no intention of working with said government even once this fighting is resolved.

The only real difference here is that the international community seems more critical of this current operation than it was of the 2012 and 2009 fighting. Maybe that new pressure will help, but I'm not too hopeful.

[Rigon]

This entire escalation of violence is nothing new. It has been pretty predictable and cyclical and it doesn't show much evidence of changing. The unity government was an important step, but it is hard to say how much this current disruption will prevent the unity government from taking future diplomatic action. Netanyahu cracked down on Hamas on purpose (one of the main contributing factors to the resumed fighting) because it was threatened by the unity government, and they have no intention of working with said government even once this fighting is resolved.

The only real difference here is that the international community seems more critical of this current operation than it was of the 2012 and 2009 fighting. Maybe that new pressure will help, but I'm not too hopeful.

Alright, another serious question: what is the methodology of counting the numbers of the dead, and how do they assign them civilian or militant status?