Hamas strike on Israel - mod warning in OP updated 19/10/23

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432001#Comment_121432001

But doesn't that represent support for the idea of Palestinian statehood, not Hamas? Palestine has its own national flag....Hamas has a completely different one (the green one with white Arabic words).

tayto lover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121431267#Comment_121431267

Is bombing and shooting them when they leave ok then?

Ulixes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432159#Comment_121432159

Okay, so you refuse to answer the question. That tells me you are incapable of having a proper adult discussion.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432224#Comment_121432224

So immediately after Hamas launches a terrorist attack on Israel, putting a Palestinian flag up on your profile isn't support for that terrorist attack but something else?

Well, I don't believe in coincidences like that.

Ulixes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432115#Comment_121432115

Thank you, someone who is at least consistent in their views.

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432200#Comment_121432200

But it's not the roadblock to peace. Israel have made peace with Jordan and Egypt despite these issues. The main problem is they both want the same land.

Ulixes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432212#Comment_121432212

So we've no idea what is actually being shown. The amount of disinformation on social gossip (it's hardly media, is it?) is astounding. A few days ago a pro Palestinian Arab site showed footage claiming to be Israeli helicopters firing on their own people during the Hamas attacks. That' of course, was nonsense.

tayto lover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121431354#Comment_121431354

Well now the Israeli supporters have been telling us that Hamas are all hiding in the tunnels so they are not 'with the other dogs' yet the other dogs are the only ones suffering. Anyway there is little or no evidence to support the obliteration of 40% of Gaza homes.

riffmongous

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432238#Comment_121432238

Anyone with even the slightest bit of knowledge would have immediately foreseen that there was going to be a huge number of Palestinians about to be revenge killed

tayto lover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121431762#Comment_121431762

I posted about that yesterday. It is unlikely that they will hand back all of the soldiers they hold hostage.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432238#Comment_121432238

The Palestinian flag is the Palestinian flag and is not banned anywhere - it is not regarded as a terrorist or proscribed flag (apart from by supporters of Israel perhaps). If the Palestinian people haven't got that flag, then what flag do they have? The Israeli flag certainly doesn't represent them.

riffmongous

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432283#Comment_121432283

It is worth saying though that people who rushed to post support without any sympathy for the Israeli victims at the same time were pretty disgraceful

tayto lover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432200#Comment_121432200

Israel didn't respect many womens' rights (or childrens) when they bombed 40% of their homes and killed 5,000 women and 6,000 children. I think the Israeli Govt and Hamas are warmongers.

Snooker Loopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432032#Comment_121432032

Israel estimates Hamas number around 30,000 fighters.

Israel says they've killed 1,000-2,000 fighters so far. Let's say 1,500.

Around 6,000 children have been killed so far.

1,500 fighters is 5% of Hamas's supposed force.

If you have to kill 6,000 children to kill 1,500 Hamas fighters, to eliminate Hamas you end up with a figure of 120,000 dead children.

That's not including the adult civilian dead.

Israel and the world media should be clear what "eliminating Hamas" actually means in practice.

It means 120,000 dead children.

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432328#Comment_121432328

I don't think the supporters of the israeli actions here like when stats are quoted on civilian death. In isolation these stats makes them look like supporting immoral actions.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432340#Comment_121432340

The maths assumes there is a direct correlation between the numbers and a linear extrapolation. Bad logic.

There would be far fewer civilian casualties of Hamas stopped using them as human shields

pjordan

I think there are unfortunately a fair proportion of Israelis including many currently in Govt that would see the only way of military defeating Hamas is to completely depopulate Gaza, be that by either wiping out the population or forcing them out of the region. They would argue that civilians casualties including women and children are merely an unfortunate collateral damage caused by Hamas using them as human shields. But whatever way you want to package it or whatever phraseology you want to apply (since the Israelis are so sensitive about words at the minute) it is tantamount to genocide.

Also, incidentally, since there were possibly 2000 Hamas terrorists involved in the attack on Israel on 7th Oct and initial IDF propaganda at the time seemed to claim they had killed a fair proportion of them at that time, then a return of say 1000 to 1500 additional Hamas members killed for the devestation caused to Gaza over the recent weeks military operations seems a pretty poor return, unless you concede that the primary aim of the military operation was to sate the thirst for revenge for 7th Oct, pure and simple (at least that would show honesty about the whole operation instead of getting offended by the language used by others)

riffmongous

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432369#Comment_121432369

Well what's your estimate then, how many dead women, how many dead children will we see once Hamas is defeated?

quokula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432328#Comment_121432328

And every child they murder is going to potentially convert that child's parents, siblings and friends into Hamas supporters. Assuming they haven't also wiped out every single man woman and child who knew or was related to the child in question of course, which is not a given with the way Israel has been acting.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432328#Comment_121432328

The equivalent would have been the British military carpet bombing West Belfast or the Bogside from the air in the 1970s in the hope that they might kill a fair few IRA men.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432391#Comment_121432391

I have no idea. Simple answer - too many

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432375#Comment_121432375

Israeli public opinion is very hardline on this and fully supports the IDF actions in Gaza. I was listening to an anti-regime Israeli journalist on Friday and he said Israeli TV never even reports the death of Gazan civilians - the TV news is all about the IDF and the hostages and Netanyahu, nothing about the suffering of the Gazans.

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432369#Comment_121432369

Israel is killing multiple civilians for every militant they kill. That is a moral choice. They have chosen these methods of warfare despite the results.

I do not disagree with your last sentence.

jmreire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432264#Comment_121432264

"All hiding in the Tunnels, and not amongst the general population" I would find that very hard to believe. As soon as they are finished "work", Hamas members will just melt into the general population, back to their wives and families. I haven't heard anything about the % of Gaza houses / building's etc destroyed, but I'd say that its pretty sure that its fairly substantial. It's a very strange thing about bombing Cities, is the amount of them that still remain standing, riddled with bullets, and broken windows etc. but still standing.

brickster69

UNGA vote result from last night, 62 countries abstained.

https://twitter.com/21WIRE/status/1729774994345926676

Ulixes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432413#Comment_121432413

That's what happens during wars.

Ulixes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432159#Comment_121432159

Maybe you could answer this:

"Israel was invaded by Hamas in an attack that specifically targeted civilians. Hamas are on record as saying that they will do the same think again as soon as they have the capability to do so. What, specifically, do you think Israel should do? Remember that Hamas are a fundamentalist Islamism terrorist organisation of the ilk of the Taliban. They have a mandate from heaved, they are required by God to do what they did and so will keep doing it as long as they can."

jmreire

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432497#Comment_121432497

Palestine for Hamas is just a steppingstone to greater things in the Jihadi world. They care only about that, and not one whit about the Palestinians themselves.

Ulixes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432328#Comment_121432328

It's a very important point. Israel estimated that Hamas actually have up to 40,000 fighters and Islamic Jihad have another 15,000. Israel have a little over 500,000 in their armed forces and up to 1000 main battle tanks. If they wanted to they could kill everyone in Gaza before the week was over. I think the aim of the Hamas attacks was to provoke the ground offensive that we see now. They wanted as much death and destruction wrought on their own people as possible. That way opinion in the region and around the world would harden against Israel. I think that Hamas have succeeded in their aim.

Much like America in Iraq and Afghanistan there is no exit strategy for Israel that doesn't look like a loss.

Ulixes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432523#Comment_121432523

I think Hamas are more local and political than that.

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432497#Comment_121432497

I despise hamas. Is that the question? I do believe they should be destroyed but I think Israel is motivating the next generation of terrorists with the amount of civilian bodies they are dropping. Their methods are immoral.

Ulixes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432548#Comment_121432548

Yes, but what should they do now to ensure that Hamas doesn't attack them again in the manner they did last month. We both agree that Israel is not doing the right thing now, either morally or strategically, but what should they do instead? I think that they should be in Gaza but they shouldn't be using anywhere near as much heavy ordinance and should be trying much harder to minimise civilian casualties. What do you think they should be doing?

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432264#Comment_121432264

What tunnels? The doctors in the hospitals told us there were no tunnels under the hospitals and loads of posters on here repeated that, so there are no tunnels.

Ulixes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432320#Comment_121432320

In what way does Israel encourage or advocate aggression towards other countries or groups? (That's what warmongering means)

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432307#Comment_121432307

Lame excuse.

It was clear that day that many in Ireland were celebrating the actions of Hamas, posting "from the river to the sea" and putting up Palestinian flags.

Denying that reality destroys your credibility.

pjordan

I was living in the US during and after 9/11. One moderate neighbour of mine (who also just happened to be Jewish) told me that in the days after she actually called the White House with a message for President Bush, that she wanted the US to Nuke Afghanistan and reduce it to a barren wasteland of nothingness and maybe later the US could build some golf courses there! She said that the WH telephonist actually laughed at this (whilst apologising for laughing).

However that sentiment was disturbingly indicative of a considerable proportion of Americans post 9/11 in that their primary demand was for revenge above all else. Over 20 years later they finally withdrew from Afghanistan without having defeated the Taliban and actually let the Taliban back into power by their departure. Israel could learn a lot from that. They might get revenge but they are unlikely to defeat Hamas militarily. Indeed they may well have sown the seeds by their actions in the past 8 weeks of a momentum that will see Islamic miltants overrun what is the entire territory of Israel within the next 20 years. That would be a huge tragic disaster and undoubtedly result in a massacre of holocaust proportions if it were to come to pass (and if it were to happen none of Europe wound be safe either) but much of it would be traceable back to Israel’s actions of the past 8 weeks. One reaps what they sow.

Snooker Loopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432398#Comment_121432398

Exactly. People ask why Irish people tend to be hostile to Israel. It's because we can imagine what would have happened had the Brits done to us what Israel is doing to Gaza, and the West Bank, and has done many times before. We imagine ourselves in the shoes of Gaza.

Thankfully our relations with Britain are good on the whole, and Irish people generally have a pretty positive view of Britain and the British people. Irishness is inextricably linked with Britain, we love their football, their music, their television, and we flock/ed to work and live there. In so many ways we have a deep love of Britain.

But there's still a very real distance between us and them, a slight suspicion, an ever present guardedness, and a knowledge that not insignificant elements in Britain still have it in for the Irish. There's still a residual hostility in Ireland to Britain and especially to these anti-Irish elements we know still exist.

These qualifications in our relationship with Britain and Britishness exist because of centuries of history, but most tangibly because of massacres which exist in living memory and vivid pictorial memory like Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy.

Could you imagine how much we would hate the Brits if they had done to us what Israel is doing to Gaza right now?

Ulixes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432605#Comment_121432605

And doctors don't tell lies because they, like nurses, are healthcare professionals and so operate on a higher moral and ethic plain than the rest of us.

Ulixes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432623#Comment_121432623

"Could you imagine how much we would hate the Brits if they had done to us what Israel is doing to Gaza right now?"

Or how much they'd hate us if we did what Hamas did last month. Imagine if the IRA had killed 250 people at Glastonbury and another 1000 or so in their homes in the same area.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432616#Comment_121432616

This is a bit different though. US cities and civilians weren't in rocket range of Afghanistan. The US could go home.

Where does Israel go home to?

Whether they like it or not, Israel and Palestinians are in it for the long haul.

You can just as easily make the case that if Israel showed weakness after October 7th, it would be seen as appeasement and lead to more attacks not just from Hamas but from other factions in the Middle East that hate Israel.

Strazdas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432623#Comment_121432623

I've heard this whole subject discussed recently (about why the British by contrast didn't carpet bomb nationalist areas in NI or behave much more violently) and a suggestion was that the British still had some respect for their Irish nationalist opponents - the Israelis seem to regard Palestinians as vastly inferior.

odyssey06

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432623#Comment_121432623

Can you imagine how much the Brits would hate us if we'd carried out atrocities like October 7th, by the armed faction of the regime in charge of the territory? If that armed faction wanted to extinguish Britain from the map, and was subjecting major British cities to rocket barrages on a scale not seen since the Blitz?

They would not be "good as a whole" would they?

Your comparison falls down on every level.

Snooker Loopy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432643#Comment_121432643

Of course there are British people who still hate the Irish because of things like the Birmingham and Guildford and Brighton bombings, Canary Wharf, Warrington, and so much else. I can understand that.

But those atrocities didn't happen in a vacuum.

Stating that is an entirely different thing from stating support for the Provos. I consider the Provos a nihilistic murder gang and I hate what they did. But groups like the Provos are the very likely outcome when you treat a people like shlt for decades, centuries.

Israel has treated the Palestinians like shlt since the 1940s. The conflict didn't start on October 7th, 2023. Atrocities like October 7th, 2023 do not happen in a vacuum.

Israel's cheerleaders simply do not acknowledge this. They outright deny historical cause and effect. It's a denial of reality and a rejection of truth.

riffmongous

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432399#Comment_121432399

Agreed alright, the thing is though once you start putting an actual number on it (the actual reality) it becomes much harder for the politicians to justify

cheese sandwich

The Irish Times (OK, Una Mullally, but they published it) manages to review Gig for Gaza without using the words “Israel” or “Hamas”.

It’s stuff like this that gives credence to the Israel President’s complaint that Irish people don’t care about what was done to Israelis by Hamas on Oct 7.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/review/2023/11/29/gig-for-gaza-at-3arena-this-night-is-a-gift-of-hope-for-anyone-yearning-for-peace/

Also, utterly cringey headline on the article. I doubt that the gathering of a few hundred people in Dublin will have much impact on the military planning of either Israel or Hamas.

Sudden Valley

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432595#Comment_121432595

I would be agree regarding heavy ordinance but I put my hands up and say I have no idea of how to solve this conflict. I only call out what I think is wrong and I think counterproductive.

nacho libre

https://news.walla.co.il/item/3625638

What is the gist of this article? Thanks in advance.

nacho libre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121431762#Comment_121431762

For me it's a sign of the pressure they(Hamas) are under. They are a spent force in northern Gaza.. They could be hoping that the longer the truce goes on the harder it is for Israel to resume the war. With this in mind the heads of Mossad and the CIA are in Qatar to discuss extending the truce

brickster69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432860#Comment_121432860

Helicopters you say ? Mind you it does sound like some in the background where this woman was hiding at the music festival. Probably Hamas propaganda

https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1729646937060639208

amandstu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121432679#Comment_121432679

"Israel has treated the Palestinians like shlt since the 1940s. The conflict didn't start on October 7th, 2023. Atrocities like October 7th, 2023 do not happen in a vacuum."

Can you show where mutual abuse between the two communities in and since the 40s can not be characterized as 6 of one/half a dozen of the other?

Include the Arab neighbours in that if you think the mutual disrespect balance has been too lopsided within the boundaries of ,say Mandated Palestine and onwards.