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

if iran attacks israel in a US election year who knows what will happen

it is just the excuse the US and Israel have been waiting for years to bomb the absolute shite out of the iranian nuclear program

And what, pray tell, are the "peaceful means" of dealing with Hamas? Google 'Hamas sex crimes'.

ISIS emerged from the ashes of toppled governments amid the 'war on terror'. ISIS and other extremists thrive in chaos, violence and amongst the dispossessed, disaffected, hopeless and angry people.

Treating terrorism as crime, and targetting your response at the criminals and their resources is by far the most effective way to destroy those organisations.

Retaliating, by attacking innocent people is so obviously counter productive.

Terrorism thrives on propaganda. After the 'War on Terror' began in 2001, the amount of global islamic extremism massively increased. It didn't go down.

Every new 'Martyr' is another entry in the ISIS/Al Qaeda/Hesbollah/Hamas recruitment pamphlet

'Even' the US?

That's like a murderer taking the stand on trial and saying 'I can't be guilty, even my own mother and all my accomplices to the alleged crime say I'm innocent'

No, the problem is not 'Muslims' as you say, the problem is radical Islam. Radical Islam is unable to live in peace with anyone, even with other Islamists who have been killing each other, inter alia, since 632AD.

Obviously most Muslims are not radical, but in The Palestinian Territories, it is an extreme situation, as any of us who have been there know. If you have not been there you cannot conceive of the true context. In the last elections they voted for Hamas! Who do you think is hiding and supporting Hamas and who was cheering for them on October 7th as they raped young girls to death? Look at the videos, Palestinian women are cheering for girls being raped to death. It reminds me of the recorded call of the Russian soldier recently where his Russian wife was telling him to rape Ukrainian women. Imagine telling your partner to do that. In our naive little Irish bubble, we really do not understand the mentality on either side (luckily for us), let alone the dynamics between them.

They are not even all Islamic in Palestine (yet), it used to be 10% Christian although the Christian population in the Palestinian territories has fallen to 1% and most were not killed by the IDF.

As we saw when Jordan took in Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians, these extremists cannot live in peace with anyone, even with the very moderate Muslims in Jordan (have we already forgotten what the Palestinians did to Jordan?) so I don't see how we can expect them to live in peace beside the Jews. It cannot happen, our whole premise is invalid. Ireland's colossal bias on the issue has gone from looking quaint and naive to downright uninformed, unbalanced and dangerous.

But I suppose picking a side and remaining wilfully blind to the other side (when Iran nukes Israel, will we turn a blind eye to a few million more deaths, as long as they are on 'the other side'? Just look away...) is easier than fixing our own problems in Ireland. And you'll only be wrong half the time which would improve the Irish government's record!

that’s one thing I don’t get about this current conflict - the whole “taking sides” thing - the barbaric act against Israel and innocent people last year was unforgivable- while Israel had a right to retaliate, it had gone way too far after the first month - it’s now genicide type territory - however, you still wouldn't get me waving a Palestinian flag on a bridge over a motorway as I see many groups doing every Saturday morning, many of them Irish , looking for “honks of support” from passing motorists. That to me is just makes no sense whatsoever

Iran wouldn’t be “attacking” israel, they’d be defending themselves. israel have already attacked Iran.

The regime are angry with Simon Harris and his comments to the Dáil (which suggests he is off to a good start on Israel).

I do think he should have mentioned the hostages but I don't like that Israel, and a few of their supporters,go through speeches to nick pick on phrases or omissions, while they willfully continue to kill thousands of civilians. International politics really is farcical. Exemplified by israels carryon.

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The people of Palestine have been occupied and abused for decades. I despise Hamas but Hamas were only elected after the PLO failed to make any progress. Palestinians had tried the path of secular political parties and it failed. I honestly can'y say that if I'd grown up in gaza i would not have voted for them. They same way, even thought I despise SF, I might have voted for them if I'd grown up in Belfast before/during the troubles."

Hamas were briefly in government with Fatah. Then, they killed the Fatah politicians.

Lest we forget, the PLO/Fatah are responsible for the Munich massacre in 1972

She was accurate and concise about the issues she wanted to bring up. Why was she banned from the FG Ard Fheis? If you're looking for 'what wasn't said,' she's mentioned plenty of things Ireland could have said since after 7 October and haven't. Barely a peep out of Ireland criticising Hamas.

Russia is making war on Europe, the Russian embassy is a nest of spies, yet, no cry to expel the Russian ambassador whose country is taking action directly against Irish interests.

(TBF, some Boardsies have called on the Russian ambassador to be expelled and the embassy closed.)

And, what would Ireland be saying if that Irish girl hadn't been released in the November round of hostage release? Almost as if Hamas knew her nationality…

It was pretty pathetic of Harris to not even mention the hostages, especially after all the news about the Irish girl Emily Hand who was covered extensively in the press here, then released in November.

Hamas leaders probably assume they're dead once the hostages are released. I doubt they're in a hurry and they obviously don't care who gets killed.

Nothing unique to Biden, he's made his thoughts clear but being an election year has limited his scope for practical action. That POS Johnson, the Republican speaker, is literally willing to let Russia have Ukraine with a likely death toll in the millions and a refugee crisis the likes of which the world has never seen, all to help Trump get re-elected.