War in The Middle East

[KanadaHye]

Re: War in The Middle East

In reference to the israeli intelligence establishment?

Yes... hiring minions to fight the truth and cover it up with lies must be taxing.

[Armanen]

Re: War in The Middle East

Must suck being paranoid all the time.

In reference to the israeli intelligence establishment?

[KanadaHye]

Re: War in The Middle East

Just to remind everyone about this. It's from 2006, and still on going. Also, the US has now come out with a similar program.

Must suck being paranoid all the time.

[Armanen]

Re: War in The Middle East

Israel's Government has thrown its weight behind efforts by supporters to counter what it believes to be negative bias and a tide of pro-Arab propaganda. The Foreign Ministry has ordered trainee diplomats to track websites and chatrooms so that networks of US and European groups with hundreds of thousands of xxxish activists can place supportive messages.

In the past week nearly 5,000 members of the World Union of xxxish Students (WUJS) have downloaded special “megaphone” software that alerts them to anti-Israeli chatrooms or internet polls to enable them to post contrary viewpoints. A student team in Jerusalem combs the web in a host of different languages to flag the sites so that those who have signed up can influence an opinion survey or the course of a debate.

Just to remind everyone about this. It's from 2006, and still on going. Also, the US has now come out with a similar program.

[Armanen]

Re: War in The Middle East

Anyone think another war is brewing in the Middle East?

[Haykakan]

Re: War in The Middle East

Israel and morality cannot be used in the same sentemce, they are mutually exclusive!

[Eddo211]

Re: War in The Middle East

I cannot tell you "who are better people" because that depends on the individual. There are good and bad in both groups.
Hamas is at fault for the war with Israel, at least in recent years. Hamas has been shooting rockets and sending suicide bombers to Israel for years, always targeting defenseless civilians, almost never confronting the military. Israel has provided a lot of benefits for Palestinians, and even worked to help them set up an independent government in 2005. But then Hamas took over and continued attacks on Israel.
As a last resort, after many attempts at diplomacy and milder actions, Israel has decided to invade and deal with Hams. [Note that before 2005, entering Gaza would not have been an invasion, since Gaza belonged to Israel].
Israel has been as careful as possible to target only terrorists, not defenseless civilians, but Hamas deliberately places Palestinian civilians in the line of fire, and then acts outraged when they get hit.

This article sums it up good and should be required reading for every Israeli���written by Obadiah Shoher in Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the ME conflict.

http://samsonblinded.org/blog/respect-your-enemy.htm

Respect your enemy

Israeli attempts at denigrating Hamas are sometimes indecent. The terrorist crowd is accused of cowardice because its guerrillas did not went out to fight J.ews in the open. You know, that�s what is called, tactics. J.ews, mind you, also did not attack Hamas in a manner of romantic knights, two equally armed men fighting each other openly. Rather, Israel struck at night with overwhelming force.

Should Hamas have acted �bravely� by marching with rifles against tanks? British generals of WWI did just that, to their eternal shame and the historians� ridicule. Since WWI, troops no longer fight in the open: digging in against the enemy fire is a morally legitimate tactics.

Some accuse Hamas of using human shields. Go on, accuse the British: they employed human shields of Arabs when entering Palestinian towns during riots. If the British are immoral, then you might want to reconsider your standards of morality. Not long ago, Israeli Supreme Court barred IDF from using Arab human shields, the decision which greatly endangered J.ewish soldiers. If anything, it is more moral to use one�s own for human shield than the enemy civilians; Hamas uses its own people, most of them willingly. The human shield tactics is fairly safe for participants because IDF refrains from firing at houses full of Palestinian civilians. Israel fulminates at this tactics precisely because it is so efficient. Hamas does not even violate rules of war by deploying human shield because the affected civilians are not really endangered.

It is not generally true that Hamas fights without uniforms; sometimes it does. What would the uniforms change? An armed Arab is clearly a target, uniformed or not. Many Hamas guerrillas wear flak jackets which are as good for identification as uniforms. When IAF bombs Gaza, the pilots don�t see uniforms � and most of the collateral damage occurred during air strikes. In many areas, IDF troops received an order to shoot at anything that moves, whether uniformed or not.

Israeli newspapers ridiculed Hamas leaders for hiding in bunkers during the war while IDF chiefs also went underground in their Tel Aviv headquarters despite no danger whatsoever. While the IDF top brass hid in bunkers, Tel Aviv bomb shelters remained full of illegal African migrants, making them useless for J.ews in case of attack.

In several cases, Hamas� top commanders personally led their troops into battle. Heroism? A sign of disintegration, according to Israeli media: the commanders led the charge in order to rally their cowardly troops. The media lied despite hundreds of soldiers who testify to the contrary: Hamas guerrillas were unorganized but fought with bravery verging on suicide.

On this, too, the public opinion is warped. J.ews want Hamas to fight suicidally, in uniforms and out of towns against helicopters, but ridicule the guerrillas for their suicidal urge. The detractors do not even know about thousands of essentially suicide missions undertaken by J.ewish soldiers in WWII, the War of Independence, and less frequently since then. Hamas fighters are desperate just as xxxish soldiers were six decades ago, and have much the same attitude toward their and enemy civilians� lives.

This brings us to Hamas rocket attacks on Israeli population centers. We do not need to argue whether Israeli civilians, most of whom are reservists � and reservists were called up in this war � are a legitimate target. In any war, population centers are targeted: any demands to the contrary stem from romanticism. Israel would gladly carpet-bomb Gaza and only refrains from doing so because of the world opinion � which is anti-Israeli regardless.
Hamas is undoubtedly an enemy.
So are Fatah, and Egypt, and Lebanon, and just every other Muslim entity. They hate us, we hate them, and there will be no permanent peace.
The problem with Hamas is that we cannot destroy it: it is too deeply entrenched in Palestinian society. Israel can quench Hamas activity for some time with exhaustive police work, but do we want to re-occupy Gaza and govern the criminal neighborhood which Egypt had wisely abandoned? The only way to eradicate Hamas and other militant groups is by depopulating Gaza, which is not a workable option with any foreseeable Israeli government. Overwhelming retaliation also won�t work: after the worst retaliation plausible in January 2009, Gazan guerrillas quickly resumed the attacks.

Short of annihilation, we need an understanding with Hamas. That truce would not hold: some groups would violate it, Israel will retaliate � but the border violence will remain tolerable.

[hipeter924]

Re: War in The Middle East

Going on forever, it is good that at least some Israeli's are starting to wake up to what has been going on.

[Federate]

Re: War in The Middle East

Israel military condemns anti-Palestinian T-shirts

JERUSALEM – Israel's military condemned on Monday T-shirts worn by soldiers that depict scenes of violence against Palestinians as the army faces increasing domestic criticism over its conduct during the recent Gaza war.

The T-shirts, ordered by troops to mark the end of basic training and other military courses, were worn by a number of enlisted men in different units, the daily Haaretz newspaper reported. They were not made or sanctioned by the military.

One depicts a child in the cross-hairs of a rifle with the slogan, "The smaller they are, the harder it is," said one of T-shirts shown in Haaretz. Another shows a pregnant woman in the cross-hairs and the words "1 Shot 2 Kills." Others depict a soldier blowing up a mosque and Palestinian women weeping over a gravestone.

The Tel Aviv factory that made many of the shirts, Adiv, refused to comment.

The shirts "are not in accordance with IDF values and are simply tasteless," the army said in a statement. "This type of humor is unbecoming and should be condemned."

The statement said disciplinary action would be taken against troops wearing the T-shirts.

The Israeli military has been facing increased criticism at home for its conduct in Gaza in the aftermath of published testimony from several unidentified soldiers released last week.

The soldiers' testimony described troops killing Palestinian civilians, including children, by hastily opening fire under relaxed rules of engagement. The soldiers also reported the wanton destruction of civilian property.

The three-week Gaza offensive, launched to end years of rocket fire at Israeli towns, ended on Jan. 18. According to Palestinian officials, around 1,400 Palestinians were killed, most of them civilians. Thirteen Israelis died, three of them civilians.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090323/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_shocking_shirts

[hipeter924]

Re: War in The Middle East

If that was really true then IDF is the biggest failure ever as a military force.

Do you wanna know what the funny part about ALL of this is? The righteous religious j-ews respect Hamas for the Palestinian struggle���for they remember not long ago that they themselves were taking up arms at any means possible to claim and protect what they conceived to be as their God given right.
Ha, the warrior Gods are amused.

What I said is true, you can find all the facts yourself, or alternatively flick through what sort of comments that Israeli MP's, and the Israeli military itself made from 1940s through to today.

But true the Israeli's do respect the struggle, then again did not Nazi's respect the struggle of the USSR, did not the Ottomans respect the struggle of the Eastern Romans, did not the Romans respect the Greek struggle of Alexander the Great. Indeed you can respect the struggle of anyone and still hate their guts.