Hamas and Its Discontents

I dont give a sh.t to Hamas. Just dont kill Palestinian babies (or any other baby for that sake!)

Will it stop Palestinians voting for Hamas?

Eventually. The Palestinians will get tired of their leaders, the Iranians and Hizbollah promising to fight to the last Palestinian.

Of course, you are right. The Israelis 'lost.' So what if Gaza is a shambles, the locals aren't so happy with Hamas (did you read this article?) and Hamas has become even more violent against their own. So what if the Arab regimes despise Hamas.

I'll bet the Israelis (and the other Arab nations) will be delighted to 'lose' to Hamas, again and again.

DavidBaltimore, that depends on the Palestinians.

When they hide behind women and children, fire from hospitals and school and use civilian homes as ammunition dumps, the Palestinians themselves are saying quite clearly they do not value human life very much.

How many Palestinian lives equals the life of a single Israeli?

I feel very sorry for all the innocent civilians who have perished but if Hamas were setting up rocket platforms in my neiborhood, I would kick some ass before I let my family and friends died because of these idiots. Come on Palestiniens
have some balls and stand up for your family, friends and country. If you continue to allow Hamas to operate like that
in your communities, ISRAEL WILL EAT YOU ALIVE!

I feel very sorry for all the innocent civilians who have perished but if Hamas were setting up rocket platforms in my neiborhood, I would kick some ass before I let my family and friends died because of these idiots. Come on Palestiniens
have some balls and stand up for your family, friends and country. If you continue to allow Hamas to operate like that
in your communities, ISRAEL WILL EAT YOU ALIVE!

It has been noted that

???Terrorism??? is a description of a means, a method of deliberately attacking or threatening to attack civilian targets in order to achieve political goals. ???Freedom fighting??? is a description of an end, as a freedom fighter???s goal is national liberation. An individual could participate in ???terrorism??? and ???freedom fighting??? simultaneously, because one word describes means, while the other describes ends. To say that a Palestinian suicide bomber is not condemnable as a terrorist because the bomber???s cause is national liberation is to argue that the end justifies the means.???

The deliberate use of terror comes about as the result of the failure of eliciting a particular desired response in negotiation. In other words, terror has become an acceptable form of expression and pressure exerted when individuals, groups or ideologues don???t get their way. The deliberate use of terror is not birthed in ???humiliation,??? or ???desperation...???

As a war strategy, Israel wanted to make it "too costly" to the Palestinians so that they would stop militants firing rockets and not vote for Hamas next time in elections. This is the main reason behind the high civilian casualties. It was planned this way, and was executed accordingly. This is a textbook example of collective punishment. If a non-state actor would do this, it could easily be classified as terrorism, that is to use terror tactics to achieve a political goal.

The reporting here is VERY incomplete. If Isreal actually wanted rockets to stop and have a viable peace for both parties, they would lift the blockade as the agreed to in June. If they had actually kept even a fraction of their commitments, there would not have been a conflict. Instead of lifting an illegal naval blockade (which by itself is an act of war) and stopping an expansion that the UN, USA, UK, and virtually every reasonable country has condemned, they drop bombs on civilians. Davrafsky - if you want to ask what would we do (which is a very good question) you also need ask yourself how the USA would react if another country sized one of our states, moved everyone who lived in that state into a refugee camp, set up a naval blockade that prevented any export of goods and importing of medical supplies, then cut off power and drinking water because we wanted the state they seized in the first place. This is Israel butchering women and children in order to crush an entire culture's spirit to justify the seizure of their land.

The reporting here is VERY incomplete. If Isreal actually wanted rockets to stop and have a viable peace for both parties, they would lift the blockade as the agreed to in June. If they had actually kept even a fraction of their commitments, there would not have been a conflict. Instead of lifting an illegal naval blockade (which by itself is an act of war) and stopping an expansion that the UN, USA, UK, and virtually every reasonable country has condemned, they drop bombs on civilians. Davrafsky - if you want to ask what would we do (which is a very good question) you also need ask yourself how the USA would react if another country sized one of our states, moved everyone who lived in that state into a refugee camp, set up a naval blockade that prevented any export of goods and importing of medical supplies, then cut off power and drinking water because we wanted the state they seized in the first place. This is Israel butchering women and children in order to crush an entire culture's spirit to justify the seizure of their land.

BASED On Declassified Israeli Documents & Personal Diaries
The PLUNDER and LOOTING of Palestinian homes, farms, plantations, banks, cars, ports, railroads, schools, hospitals, trucks, tractors, etc. in the course of the 1948 war were a crime on a massive scale. For example, the looting of Lydda City was described by the Israeli Ministerial Committee for Abandoned Property in mid-July, 1948

"From Lydda alone, the army took out 1,800 truck-loads of property." (1949, The First Israelis, p. 69)

It should be noted that the great majority of the Palestinian people have been dispossessed for the past five decades, meanwhile, their properties are being used by mostly European Jews (who were victims of similar war crimes committed by anti-Semitic Europeans). Prior to being ethnically cleansed in 1948, the Palestinian people owned and operated 93% of Palestine's lands, and contributed up to 55-60% of its national Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

On April 8-9 1948 Ben-Gurion told Mishmar Ha'emek representatives to burn and destroy the neighboring villages, he said:

"[They] said it was imperative to expel the Arabs [in the area] and to burn the villages. For me, the matter was very difficult. [But] they said that they were not sure [the kibbutz could continue to exist] if the villages remained intact and [if] the Arab inhabitants were not expelled, for they [i.e. the Palestinian Arabs villagers] would [later] attack them [i.e. Mishmar Ha'emek]." (Benny Morris, p. 116)

Ben-Gurion was told on February 7, 1948 that "Jews have no land in the Jerusalem corridor", he arrogantly replied:

"The war will GIVE us the land. The concept of 'ours' and 'not ours' are ONLY CONCEPTS for peacetime, and during war they lose all their meaning." (Benny Morris, p. 170 & Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 180)

On June 16, 1948, there were calls by members of the MAPAM party for the return of Jaffa's "peace minded" Palestinian refugees, and in response, Ben-Gurion stated during a Cabinet meeting:

"I do not accept the version [i.e. policy] that [we] should encourage their return. . . I believe we should prevent their return . . . We must settle Jaffa, Jaffa will become a Jewish city. . . . The return of [Palestinian] Arabs to Jaffa [would be] not just foolish." If the [Palestinian] Arabs were allowed to return, to Jaffa and elsewhere, " and the war is renewed, our chances of ending the war as we wish to end it will be reduced. . . . Meanwhile, we must prevent at all costs their return," he said, and, leaving no doubt in the ministers' minds about his views on the ultimate fate of the [Palestinian] refugees, he added: "I will be for them not returning after the war." (Benny Morris, p. 141 & 1949, The First Israelis, p. 75)

http://www.palestineremembered.com

Let's see Israel invaded Palestine with illegal Cluster bombs and fire bombs killing over 1200 citizens and injuring over 4000. as they used bombs and planes. Israel lost 3 citizens and 10 soldiers with not much damage to property. Sounds like it's all Palestines fault if only they would move out and go to Egypt or Jordan and give all the land to Israel no one had to died. Next Israel will look for more land in other Middle Eastern countries. Israel has a right to murder woman and children if one Israel person is hurt. Israel has a right to invade Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and any country they feel like. God gave Israel the rights to murder and take over what ever they want. Who knows Israel might decide they want the United States next and they can take over that too. Israel and the Jews are God's chosen people and with God's blessings either you follow the Israel rule or get wiped off the face of the earth. Hamas was just an excuse to murder and no one can do or say anthing about it. Israel is under the protection of God even the United Nations can't dictate to them. Israel has no problem murdering kids or even burning them to death in the name of God. What the World Leaders should do is just become slaves to Israel as it was done to the Jews. The Palestine Holocaust Massacre is just the beginning now that Israel has Nuclear Weapons they can use when ever they choose to. Obama better watch out either he caves in to our new World Leader Israel or who knows the USA could be invaded and those Cluster bombs/fire bombs could be used on Americans next.

Shame on any resistance movement that deliberately hides in civilian hoods and challenges the other to come and get them. Hamas welcomes the civilian deaths and encourages it. Consider missiles launched from Tijuana into San Diego. What would we do?

If Israel wants to dispel suspicions about its campaign against civilians, it should allow reporters on the ground.

Otherwise it is natural to suspect they are covering something up.

Israel has lost a lot of support in America over this.

war and peace becomes an issue of expense and loss. when one side has lost enough to make it quit, the war will be over. not about humanitarian issues alone. no one wants dead humans. no one wants war that kills your people either. When the US dropped atomic bombs on two cities in Japan at the end of WWII, the US had been faced with this delima..the Japanese command has ordered all Japanese to fight to the death, no surrender. If the island of Japan had to be invaded by US soldiers, hundreds of thousands, perhaps a half million soldiers would die, and millions of Japanese civilians as well due to bombing and shelling before ground troops entered. The only way for Japan to see the folly of war continuing was to totally destroy two major cities, not the capital Tokyo, but two manufacturing hubs. some 200,000 civilians died, and the entire cities were totally gone. That was what Japan would have looked like if the invasion had to happen to end the war that the Japanese started. the horrible devistation saved millions of lives, and the entire structure of the Japanese civilization. the got the message. that is the case of the Isreal prosecution in Gaza of Hamas. if they needed to, Isreal could level the entire country. it is up to the Hamas leaders, or the local Palestine citizens to get the message using intelligence rather than propaganda and stubborn rhetoric. Isreal wants to be left alone in peace. If Hamas keeps throwing rockets, at some time, Isreal has no choice but to level the place and take the whacks from world opinion. world opinion does not kill children. rockets and suicide bombers do. the discussion of proportional war is nonsense. war is to bring about peace for the peace lover. Hamas wants war and not peace. if the civilians want peace, they must over ride Hamas and the terrorists before Isreal has no choice but to level Gaza and the area to the ground.

Claiming victory when everything around you is destroyed,your people are dead,dying and suffering.Moral victory sounds like unaccepted defeat to me.If hamas is not removed from gaza,any ceasefire will only be temporary,in a few months Israel will be back and the cycle will begin all over again.Moral victory,what nonsense.Hamas,put your people before your pride and moral victories before they choke on them.

People of Gaza,Hamas claims victory at the expense of your lives not their own.You are expendable to the Israelis and your own government.You are bloody exclamation points on their charter.You are professional victims,there for all the world to see your suffering so hamas will profit.Stand up now and throw hamas off your back before they decide they need to make a statement again in your blood.Good luck in the next war.

CKidweel:

You said, "UNRWA can be trusted because they have absolutely NOTHING to gain from lying on this issue." That is absurd. UNWRA has employed Hamas operatives, have allowed ambulances UN ambulances to transport gunmen and make no bones about using Hamas school texts in their schools- texts that explicitly call for genocide.

Video also shows how Hamas gunmen used UNWRA schools as shelter and how they fired rockets in close proximity to those UNWRA facilities.

Shall I go on?

All these things have been documented. It appears as if YOU need to be slapped silly.