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

Israel like every country has violent roots (Ireland and the USA jump to mind wrt to the British.)

To say Israel was 'formed' in violence is pretty meaningless, basically it's just pejorative. Most countries were 'formed' in violence with few exceptions.

The Shinners gave up violence as well but like PLO they did so because it was politically expedient to do so, not because of a moral recalibration. They also hero worship child killers and terrorists. They are cut from the same cloth. I'm not sure if the PLO still run protection rackets and wash diesel though.

If anyone thinks Ireland it anti Israeli now just wait until our very own (former) child killers are in power.

What is the cut-off date?

We Irish are claiming land occupied by our ancestors 800 years ago and currently in the possession of the British. If the Israelis can't claim from 2000 years ago, how can we have constitutional provisions relating to 800 years ago?

Some of the women who were murdered by Hamas were also raped before they were murdered. Why did the UN Women group take until 1 December to condemn Hamas's crimes?

Again with the BS that this conflict originated out of thin air on Oct 7th.

Israel killed on average 12 Palestinians for every Israeli killed each year for the last 3 years (including 2023 up to end Sept).

If Hamas' attacks on Oct 7th are justification for Israel killing about 20K Palestinians since then, can you explain to us why with the death tolls the Palestinians have suffered above, they, whether in the form of Hamas or whatever, is not entitled to defend itself.

All of this talk about the massive threat Hamas supposedly poses to Israel and yet scarcely a single Israeli citizen has died or been harmed since the October 7th atrocities. How come we're not hearing about dozens or hundreds of Israeli deaths every day, with this monstrous and existential threat to their very existence on their borders?

You've introduced the concept of defense as a justification for the killing of people in this post when neither my post nor the one I was responding to. That is curious, like you immediately realized there is no justification and so the goalposts had to be moved.

What Israel in Gaza is not defending itself. Ask yourself this, how would you feel, and how would you be motivated to act if your home was being bombed in this way with tens of family members being wiped out in many cases. If you were a 12 or 13 year old who saw your parents lying under the rubble of your home, what would your response likely be if someone said you could fire a rocket at the people who inflicted that suffering and loss on you?

US Secretary of Defense said as much at the weekend.

Because the Israeli government care about their own citizens and protect them. The same can't be said about the government of Gaza.

Hamas started a war to get as many of its own people killed in order to derail the treaties other Arab countries were signing with Israel. It worked. It's a big success for Hamas. They care not a whit about the dead children on their streets.

Israel forces were directly responsible for the deaths of several Israelis on Oct 7th. Helicopter gun ships, tanks, machine gun fire from Israeli's fired in a panic killed many of their own citizens.

You know this.

Very tough reading from this BBC report on systematic rape that occurred with the Oct 7 attack

"Several people involved in collecting and identifying the bodies of those killed in the attack told us they had seen multiple signs of sexual assault, including broken pelvises, bruises, cuts and tears, and that the victims ranged from children and teenagers to pensioners.

Video testimony of an eyewitness at the Nova music festival, shown to journalists by Israeli police, detailed the gang rape, mutilation and execution of one victim.

Videos of naked and bloodied women filmed by Hamas on the day of the attack, and photographs of bodies taken at the sites afterwards, suggest that women were sexually targeted by their attackers.

Few victims are thought to have survived to tell their own stories.

Their last moments are being pieced together from survivors, body-collectors, morgue staff and footage from the attack sites."

""I spoke with at least three girls who are now hospitalised for a very hard psychiatric situation because of the rapes they watched," Minister May Golan told me. "They pretended to be dead and they watched it, and heard everything. And they can't deal with it."

Israel's police chief Yaacov Shabtai said that many survivors of the attacks were finding it difficult to talk and that he thought some of them would never testify about what they saw or experienced.

"18 young men and women have been hospitalised in mental health hospitals because they could no longer function," he said.

Others are reportedly suicidal. One of those working with the teams around survivors told the BBC that some had already killed themselves.

Much of the evidence has come from the volunteer body-collectors deployed after the attacks, and those who handled the bodies once they arrived at the Shura army base for identification.

One of the body-collectors volunteering with the religious organisation Zaka described to me signs of torture and mutilation which included, he said, a pregnant woman whose womb had been ripped open before she was killed, and her foetus stabbed while it was inside her."

Can you please state Hamas. Palestinians are not fighting a war right now. They are sifting through rubble, trying to find water, to stay alive. It’s really disingenuous of you.

Wait, I thought you were the one who said:

"If Hamas' attacks on Oct 7th are justification for Israel killing about 20K Palestinians since then, can you explain to us why with the death tolls the Palestinians have suffered above, they, whether in the form of Hamas or whatever, is not entitled to defend itself."

So, Hamas is entitled to defend itself, and the October 7th attack was that? No goalpost moving, just trying to understand your point. Neither the October 7th massacre nor the enormous constant bombardment with rockets were defense in my view; they were offenses, the Oct 7th one coldbloodedly designed to maximize media coverage and engender international outrage at the expense of Palestinian and Israeli lives.

Reuters seeing the light in it's reporting now. " Israel orders Gazan's to flee, bombs where it sends them "