2014 Israel-Gaza Conflict [UN: 1,525+ Palestinian dead, mostly civilian; 66 Israeli]

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GYODX said:
PressTV. Nice source.

Especially hilarious after the incessant whining over supposed BBC and CNN "bias".
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You've no idea of what you're talking about.

The level of PressTV professionalism (& subjectivity, but that is not the point here) is on par with the BBC.
 
So what is exactly stopping the UN or any other non-American country from taking any kind of action? Do they also suffer from the Israeli lobby like in the US?
 
Yo, I posted this on the last page and I don't think anyone saw it.

It's basically saying "fuck tribalism and good/evil dichotomies, both sides are people and this war needs to stop". I got it from Richard Dawkins' Twitter. What does GAF think about the points raised?
 
LNBL said:
This girl is tweeting from within Gaza, she lives there.

https://twitter.com/Farah_Gazan

Has some short Kik clips of drone sounds en impacting rockets.
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Yeah. I've her (among many others) in my twitter feed. I can't begin to even imagine what all of them are living through right now. My heart and mind are with all of them.

https://twitter.com/OccPalGaza

https://twitter.com/jncatron

https://twitter.com/DimaEleiwa

https://twitter.com/Zee_Gaza

https://twitter.com/Mogaza

Some of them hasn't been active for a while

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https://twitter.com/iyadTah/status/493873123758833666
 
That Sam Harris piece is pretty dense. The part that I can't get past is giving credit to Israel for not leveling Gaza "because they could if they wanted to." Sure they could do that, but it would be the dumbest way to go about occupying the country by attracting negative attention (and risk losing Western funding). Even what they're doing right now is pretty dumb though...so maybe Israel has more leeway than I thought.

What I agree with him on is that Israel has a superior government structure because it is not completely based on religion like some of these Arab countries are, which is frankly ridiculous. If that ever gets solved there will be much less conflict in the Middle East.
 
I hope people now realize that this new atheist movement is a faux cover to hate and no different than extremist religious folks. The old atheist is a much cleaner concept of how they really should live which is not believing but not hating either. Harris has forgotten one side is the clear aggressor, as per his argument its ok for Palestinian civilians go get it as long as Israel does its job because Palestinians are muslims so their loss is not really a loss
 
Buzzati said:
Dawkins and Harris can go suck each other off in their self-congratulating little shells. Cowards.
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I feel like they do the idea of atheism a disservice. Atheism should be about prioritizing the physical concerns of the world and its people over the spiritual, not about trying to "beat" religion. Or maybe I just have the wrong perception of what Atheism should be... :(
Hackworth said:
Yo, I posted this on the last page and I don't think anyone saw it.

It's basically saying "fuck tribalism and good/evil dichotomies, both sides are people and this war needs to stop". I got it from Richard Dawkins' Twitter. What does GAF think about the points raised?
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Pretty terrible article masquerading as impartial.
The reason fewer Israeli civilians die is not because there are fewer rockets raining down on them. It's because they are better protected by their government.

When Hamas' missiles head towards Israel, sirens go off, the Iron Dome goes into effect, and civilians are rushed into bomb shelters. When Israeli missiles head towards Gaza, Hamas tells civilians to stay in their homes and face them.

While Israel's government urges its civilians to get away from rockets targeted at them, Gaza's government urges its civilians to get in front of missiles not targeted at them.

The popular explanation for this is that Hamas is poor and lacks the resources to protect its people like Israel does. The real reason, however, seems to have more to do with disordered priorities than deficient resources (see #5). This is about will, not ability. All those rockets, missiles, and tunnels aren't cheap to build or acquire. But they are priorities. And it's not like Palestinians don't have a handful of oil-rich neighbors to help them the way Israel has the US.
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Man, this article is full of bullshit, but I think this is the cherry on top. Clearly the reason so many people are dying in Gaza is because Hamas wants its citizens to die and isn't building an amazing airstrike/tank defense system that they have the capability to.
 
Yaphett Kotto said:
So what is exactly stopping the UN or any other non-American country from taking any kind of action? Do they also suffer from the Israeli lobby like in the US?
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What can be done? As long as Israel continues to deny it's the ones that are launching the attacks, they can easily say it is Hamas and everyone will nod in agreement.

The only way this is going to end is when EVERY SINGLE Palestinian is murdered by Israel, and there won't be anyone left to be in an uproar about.
 
Hackworth said:
Yo, I posted this on the last page and I don't think anyone saw it.

It's basically saying "fuck tribalism and good/evil dichotomies, both sides are people and this war needs to stop". I got it from Richard Dawkins' Twitter. What does GAF think about the points raised?
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Frankly I think it's garbage "truth is in the middle!" bullshit.

1. Why is everything so much worse when there are Jews involved?
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3. Why would Israel deliberately want to kill civilians?
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4. Does Hamas really use its own civilians as human shields?

It isn't just speculation anymore that Hamas puts its civilians in the line of fire.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri plainly admitted on Gazan national TV that the human shield strategy has proven "very effective."

The UN relief organization UNRWA issued a furious condemnation of Hamas after discovering hidden rockets in not one, but two children's schools in Gaza last week.

Hamas fires thousands of rockets into Israel, rarely killing any civilians or causing any serious damage. It launches them from densely populated areas, including hospitals and schools.
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5. Why are people asking for Israel to end the "occupation" in Gaza?
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6. Why are there so many more casualties in Gaza than in Israel?
While Israel's government urges its civilians to get away from rockets targeted at them, Gaza's government urges its civilians to get in front of missiles not targeted at them.

The problem is, if civilian casualties in Gaza drop, Hamas loses the only weapon it has in its incredibly effective PR war.
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Obviously it is the fault of Hamas that over 800 civilians have died in this attack!
 
Hackworth said:
Yo, I posted this on the last page and I don't think anyone saw it.

It's basically saying "fuck tribalism and good/evil dichotomies, both sides are people and this war needs to stop". I got it from Richard Dawkins' Twitter. What does GAF think about the points raised?
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It's a lot of the same things we've been talking about for a while - for example, it talks about how Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005 - ignoring the fact that it, for all intents and purposes, is still occupying Gaza. It hand waves the blockade and border control away, saying that pulling troops and settlements out counts, enough to refute that point.

They it seems to not understand the reason why a government like Hamas is elected, and pointedly ignore the fact that Hamas does a shit load of humanitarian things in Gaza, along with it's terrible things, making it absolutely not black and white - combine that with an occupied territory obviously siding with a government that is vocally anti-occupier... it's not hard to see why Hamas is popular, and why it's popularity is not waning.
 
Maninthemirror said:
I hope people now realize that this new atheist movement is a faux cover to hate and no different than extremist religious folks. The old atheist is a much cleaner concept of how they really should live which is not believing but not hating either
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PZ Myers and people like him are trying to build Atheism into something more moral.

Not everyone's a bastard, just a worryingly large amount...

EDIT: As far as the article is concerned that was kind of what I was worried about.
 
Hackworth said:
Yo, I posted this on the last page and I don't think anyone saw it.

It's basically saying "fuck tribalism and good/evil dichotomies, both sides are people and this war needs to stop". I got it from Richard Dawkins' Twitter. What does GAF think about the points raised?
Click to expand...

The tribalism aspect is accurate. I have Muslim friends who don't express the same outrage at what is going on in Syria, Nigeria, Iraq, in comparison to Israel.

I'm of Iranian background, though not Muslim, my dad would occasionally show me videos from Iran where kids are taught to hate Israel, and some of the sermons given by the mullahs.
 
Hackworth said:
Yo, I posted this on the last page and I don't think anyone saw it.

It's basically saying "fuck tribalism and good/evil dichotomies, both sides are people and this war needs to stop". I got it from Richard Dawkins' Twitter. What does GAF think about the points raised?
Click to expand...

Yeah I just read your article and it's shit.

As someone who has been relatively new to going in depth with this topic, it is shocking the level of pure unadulterated spin and bullshit that is used to support Israel. This article is no different. It is so shocking how this seems to be the one topic where propel from all media that are otherwise smart, liberal, critical thinkers who turn into hawkish nationalists for a country they don't even live in.

I just visited some of their human shield evidence links and none of it proved they are employing as wide scale policy of human shielding. They used the abandoned school cache without mentioning it was abandoned and then they link to a guy speaking about Arabs trying to protect their homes by going to rooftops and baring their chests. Nothing about hiding munitions in their house and forcing them to stay inside to protect them or Hamas members.

I'm still waiting for anyone to give me supporting evidence that Hamas - as a matter of policy - Is employing wide scale human shielding.
 
I love how that asshole from the Huffington post tries to use "you're anti-Semitic being outraged about this because Muslims kill other Muslims more". Does the US currently give billions of dollars a year to ISIS?
 
Toxi said:
I love how that asshole from the Huffington post tries to use "you're Semitic being outraged about this because Muslims kill other Muslims more". Does the US currently give billions of dollars a year to ISIS?
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Exactly. We are pouring money into Israel and filling our citizens head with their propaganda. While they claim to be a peaceful democratic nation and is viewed by the Middle East as our countries Middle East extension Of course people are going to be more critical of them then ISIS or Syria.

It's like in this country it's cool to get absolutely pissed at Americans killing Iraqi civilians or drone strikes in Pakistan but if we criticize Israel for blowing up a UN school or shelling a hospital or a playground you're at best misguided and wrong and at worst anti-Semitic.
 
http://www.timesofisrael.com/talk-of-feared-new-holocaust-at-knesset-meeting-on-european-anti-semitism/#ixzz38oC8Wuqd


The room was packed to capacity at the Knesset on Monday for an emergency meeting on the “rising wave of violent anti-Semitic and anti-Israel demonstrations sweeping Europe,” with MKs and Diaspora Jewish leaders offering testimony and issuing condemnations.

The meeting, chaired by MK Yoel Razvozov, saw representatives of Jewish communities and diplomats from countries including France, Greece, Hungary, Belgium, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Germany and Italy speaking at a session which went well overtime but ended inconclusively.

The meeting was called by the Knesset’s Diaspora Affairs Committee with the cooperation of the Israeli-Jewish Congress.

Members of Knesset bemoaned the upswing in anti-Semitism since the start of Operation Protective Edge on July 8, and security and academic experts attempted to drive home the dire importance of concrete steps to counter and educate against the rising anti-Semitism throughout Europe.

Vladimir Sloutzker, head of the Israeli-Jewish Congress, said starkly, “Never before since the Holocaust have we seen such a situation as today. We are potentially looking at the beginning of another Holocaust now.”

“These events will only grow in scale across Europe,” he warned.
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These people are insane.
 
Dai101 said:
Full of shit. "yeah, they're suffering, being sytematically killed and deprived of their basic human rights but fuck the them because they believe in god and are muslims and i don't like it". Fuck him. And he calls himself an atheist?? FUCK HIM EVEN MORE.
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Systematically killed? Really? The rest of what you're saying is not at all emotionally charged hyperbole...

Kinitari said:
This has been brought up a lot in the thread, and people haven't responded well to it. One of the things he apparently says in the end of his post in an update is like "Yeah, I am not condoning Israel's anti-humanitarian actions, or it's blockade, or all the civilian deaths. I just think one side is more in line with Western ideals than the other".

Which is... I can't even begin to comprehend how offensive that is. Essentially, I will not criticize Israel for all these heinous things I acknowledge it has committed because I think their values are more western. Like... fuck off, and imagine that being used in any other situation. I imagine he would attempt to rationally tear it apart if anyone else said it, but in this case irrationality goes out the window.

edit: this is the gem, I slightly misrepresented it



He mentions how they are stateless, and are being unjustly attacked, and how things like settlement buildings shouldn't be supported - however all these things are not aggressive. The 'primary aggressor' in this conflict to him is the Hamas government. Even if we ignore the fact that prolonged occupation and blockades are literally considered aggressive acts in pretty much every legal way, this started with Israel arrested a shitton of people unjustly, to which Hamas retaliated with rockets (not condoning the rockets, just highlighting the order of operations here) - unless he thinks that is not an aggressive action.
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I'm with you for the most part. But if we're strictly looking at this as an issue regarding the taking of human life, one is the aggressor and the other responds. Nothing to say on the part of what Hamas itself stands for and would do if given the power? I think if Harris is talking only on the subject of Israel's offenses regarding outright theft of land, and human rights violations simply because God says so, you'd be right there with him. Of course what's going on is despicable, but I'm not ready to say the whole picture paints it as Palestine backed Hamas (of course not all of Palestine) is in the right here. They aren't. Neither side can be.
 
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