Israel - Palestine Conflict Discussion Thread

[Dolev 867]

Read. He's only talking about Israeli civilians.  Feeling sorry for your own people while you're killing others in hundreds. Hypocrisy.

What?   idgi. I've already said I condemn any act of violence, Isn't it clear I'm sorry for loss of innocent lives in both sides?   You better read closely before asking me to do so.

[aphrodisease 231]

I want to share with you this drawing !

 

m

 

It's wrote "you'll renounce to violence". The morality of this drawing is that we can't stop violence with violence !

[Luc 4,776]

It has nothing to do with Arabic lessons, if already it's with Geography.

And OK, I did a mistake. But clearly Turkey is a pro-palestinain country

And I applaud them for that

[VersaceKing 419]

The fact that you're trying to justify killing innocent people :toofloppy:

 

What about not using weapons to kill them? Why must Israel take revenge every single time they see a rocket somewhere?

It's not every time, it's for 14 YEARS NOW. 

Try living even a single day with 12, 13, 15 sirens and rockets per day for 14 YEARS!!!

You fight Weapons with weapons.

[lego 44,165]

Yes. Where do u think that Hamas is aiming its rockets too? they aim it to houses, but people are not dying because of the Iron Dome + because Israel is much more prepared and we have shelters.

 

The only mistake I know was the 4 children that were killed at the beach.

Let's face the truth -

- Hamas is placing ammunition at Gaza's civilians's houses.

- Hamas is placing ammunition under civilian's houses.

- Hamas placed ammunition at a school.

- Hamas placed ammunition at a hosptial.

- Israel gives warning to innocent people that live in those houses to exit their home before it is bombed.

 

Israel HAS to bomb those homes, Israel has to bomb their ammunition so it won't be shot at Israel.

If Hamas cared so much about Gaza's citizens they would give them shelter and not hide rockets at their houses.

 

 

On 'human shielding' in Gaza

 

The Israeli army has tried to justify striking civilian areas.

 

All fighting within cities and all bombardments of urban spaces, even the most "precise and surgical", is a potential death trap for civilians. Consequently, the permeation of war into cities inevitably transforms their inhabitants into potential human shields.

For Palestinians living in Gaza today, simply spending time in their own homes, frequenting a mosque, going to a hospital or to school has become a dangerous enterprise since any one of these architectural edifices can become at any moment a target. One can no longer safely assume that the existence of masses of human bodies - even the bodies of children - in civilian spaces can serve as defense of the weak against the lethal capacity of the hi-tech states.

But since hi-tech states can and do kill hundreds or thousands of civilians, they have to provide moral justification for their action in order to preserve their standing in the international arena; they have to demonstrate that they are protecting the principles of liberal democracy. It is precisely within this context that we should understand the series of posters recently disseminated by the Israeli military through its Twitter account, Facebook and blogs.

The poster "Where do Gaza Terrorists Hide Their Weapons" is a paradigmatic example, where the subtext does the speaking: Houses, mosques, schools, and hospitals are legitimate targets because they are presumed to be weapon depositories.

 

This is also the message in "When Is A House a Home?" which simply zooms in on one of the images in the previous poster, showing how Palestinians presumably hide rockets in civilian homes.

The logic is straightforward: insofar as Hamas hides weapons in houses (illegitimate), Israel can bomb them as if they were military targets (legitimate). Within this framework, a single function (hiding weapons) out of many existing functions (home, shelter, intimacy, etc) determines the status of an urban site (in our case the house), so that the edifice's form loses its traditional signification.

The question "when does it become a legitimate military target?" is merely rhetorical. Its real meaning is: "All houses in Gaza are legitimate targets" since all houses are potentially non-homes.

"Israel uses weapons to protect its civilians"

Not unlike colonial as well as other vastly asymmetrical wars, Israel's legitimization for its indiscriminate bombing is premised upon a profound moral disjuncture between Israelis and Palestinians. In the poster "Israel uses weapon to protect its civilians. Hamas uses civilians to protect its weapons", Palestinians are depicted as barbarians who ignore the elementary grammar of international law.

Israel's warfare is, however, not only about the re-signification of architectural structures, but also about the transformation of human beings into collateral damage, subjects who can be killed without violating international law. This is the subtext of the poster featuring Israel's Chief of Staff saying: "Even as we carry out strikes, we remember that there are civilians in Gaza. Hamas has turned them into hostages."

 

Again, the logic is clear. All civilians in Gaza are being held hostage by Hamas, which is considered a war crime and a gross violation of international law governing armed conflict. This, then, provides legal and moral justification against the accusation that Israel is the one killing civilians. Presumed human rights violations carried out by Palestinians against Palestinians - taking hostages and human shielding - thus become the legitimisation of lethal and indiscriminate violence on the part of the occupying force.

Hence, the use of human shields is not only a violation. In contemporary asymmetric urban wars, accusing the enemy of using human shields helps validate the claim that the death of "untargeted civilians" is merely collateral damage. When all civilians are potential human shields, when each and every civilian can become a hostage of the enemy, then all enemy civilians become killable.

"Some bomb shelters shelter people..."

In order for all this to be convincing, the Israeli military depicts the asymmetric context in which it unleashes its violence against a whole population as symmetric. This is carried out, for instance, through the poster "Some bomb shelters shelter people, some shelter bombs". Here a radically disproportionate situation is presented as if it were balanced.

The residents of Gaza are bombed by cutting edge F-16 fighter jets and drones, yet they do not have bomb shelters, and they have nowhere to flee. Israel's residents are bombed mostly by makeshift rockets, many of which have been intercepted by Iron Dome missiles. The majority of the population in Israel has access to shelters and can flee out of the rocket's range.

These powerful images, spread by the Israeli military through social media, attempt to transform the very presence of civilians as suspect in the areas it bombards, regardless of the fact that the areas it bombs are urban centres.

The crux of the matter is that in the context of contemporary asymmetric warfare, the weak do not have many options. When there are no bomb shelters, people remain at home during extensive bombardment. And if, like in the case of the Palestinians in Gaza, fleeing is not an option - because all exits from the strip have been closed, or because the neighbour's house is under the exact same threat as one's own, or because one is already a refugee and does not want to become a refugee anew - staying put, which the high-tech states term "illegal human shields," constitutes a form of resistance.

 

 

 

Neve Gordon is the author of Israel's Occupation.

Nicola Perugini is Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Italian Studies and Middle East Studies at Brown University. His forthcoming book is entitled The Human Right to Dominate.

[Dolev 867]

You really are brainwashed, to the extent that you want to rationalize the deaths of innocent civilians by thinking that assigning blame will make it all acceptable. The large number of innocent women and children being killed is NOT acceptable!

It's unfortunate that soldiers are dying, but that is to be expected when there is a war going on. Instead, we have hundreds of deaths of innocents, including women and children, the elderly, babies, journalists, and health care workers.

Every place that is being used as a weapon storage is a legitimate target to strike. Hamas is to only one to blame for making this happen.

[Hybrid 13]

but sis let me remind you that Israel is helped by tons of countries while Hamas is branded as a 'terrorist organisation'. Hamas Can't help Palestinians because their Objective if to have Israel be thrown out, they aren't the red cross OR a Government aided by others they don't have the resources to fight and to protect at the same time. You know deep down that Israel is obviously aiming at those civilians

I mean... his absolute Stupidity

that's basically fascism, putting the goal of the organization above people's life.

and of course Hamas is branded as a terrorist organisation, they are not a defending and insuring security. They're just attacking, and they used to have a lot of suicide bombers.

Andddd no, Israel is not aiming at those civilians, Israel is aiming at places that are full with rockets and bombs - and oops, we are talking about those civilian's houses, and guess who placed all of the ammunition there? that's right, Hamas.

[lego 44,165]

You really are brainwashed, to the extent that you want to rationalize the deaths of innocent civilians by thinking that assigning blame will make it all acceptable. The large number of innocent women and children being killed is NOT acceptable!

It's unfortunate that soldiers are dying, but that is to be expected when there is a war going on. Instead, we have hundreds of deaths of innocents, including women and children, the elderly, babies, journalists, and health care workers.

 

 

Thank you.

[aphrodisease 231]

The fact that you're trying to justify killing innocent people :toofloppy:

 

What about not using weapons to kill them? Why must Israel take revenge every single time they see a rocket somewhere?

 

 100% true

[Dolev 867]

that's basically fascism, putting the goal of the organization above people's life.

and of course Hamas is branded as a terrorist organisation, they are not a defending and insuring security. They're just attacking, and they used to have a lot of suicide bombers.

Andddd no, Israel is not aiming at those civilians, Israel is aiming at places that are full with rockets and bombs - and oops, we are talking about those civilian's houses, and guess who placed all of the ammunition there? that's right, Hamas.

Exactly.

[Luc 4,776]

It's not every time, it's for 14 YEARS NOW. 

Try living even a single day with 12, 13, 15 sirens and rockets per day for 14 YEARS!!!

You fight Weapons with weapons.

You fight by showing you don't care.

 

That's what the Israeli government would do if they were truly looking for peace. They would not fight back, use their money to protect its own citizens by doing more things like the Iron Dome, they would try to fix the issue with Gaza and Palestine. 

 

It's like this kid I used to sit next to at elementary school. He drew something on my arm with his pen. I did it back. He did it back. I did it back. This went on till our whole arms were filled with ink, and then we just said 'lets just stop now '.

[VersaceKing 419]

And I applaud them for that

You can applaud as much as you'd like. It doesn't change the facts that people like you are sitting behind a computer, trashing about people and their countries, while being fed with what it's local anti-Israeli media has to report - which is based on Hamas's wrong and fake information (such as the "information" which caused this thread to even spread to 8 pages), while our cities is being bombed by Hamas's rockets, and under our cities the Hamas is digging tunnels for transforming terrorists to Israel's land - in order to make mega terror acts. You people can say what you want - but when this situation will happen in your country - don't expect us to stand from the other side and judge you for every ****ing little thing you do, even if it's true or not.

[Hybrid 13]

 

 

On 'human shielding' in Gaza

 

The Israeli army has tried to justify striking civilian areas.

 

All fighting within cities and all bombardments of urban spaces, even the most "precise and surgical", is a potential death trap for civilians. Consequently, the permeation of war into cities inevitably transforms their inhabitants into potential human shields.

For Palestinians living in Gaza today, simply spending time in their own homes, frequenting a mosque, going to a hospital or to school has become a dangerous enterprise since any one of these architectural edifices can become at any moment a target. One can no longer safely assume that the existence of masses of human bodies - even the bodies of children - in civilian spaces can serve as defense of the weak against the lethal capacity of the hi-tech states.

But since hi-tech states can and do kill hundreds or thousands of civilians, they have to provide moral justification for their action in order to preserve their standing in the international arena; they have to demonstrate that they are protecting the principles of liberal democracy. It is precisely within this context that we should understand the series of posters recently disseminated by the Israeli military through its Twitter account, Facebook and blogs.

The poster "Where do Gaza Terrorists Hide Their Weapons" is a paradigmatic example, where the subtext does the speaking: Houses, mosques, schools, and hospitals are legitimate targets because they are presumed to be weapon depositories.

 

This is also the message in "When Is A House a Home?" which simply zooms in on one of the images in the previous poster, showing how Palestinians presumably hide rockets in civilian homes.

The logic is straightforward: insofar as Hamas hides weapons in houses (illegitimate), Israel can bomb them as if they were military targets (legitimate). Within this framework, a single function (hiding weapons) out of many existing functions (home, shelter, intimacy, etc) determines the status of an urban site (in our case the house), so that the edifice's form loses its traditional signification.

The question "when does it become a legitimate military target?" is merely rhetorical. Its real meaning is: "All houses in Gaza are legitimate targets" since all houses are potentially non-homes.

"Israel uses weapons to protect its civilians"

Not unlike colonial as well as other vastly asymmetrical wars, Israel's legitimization for its indiscriminate bombing is premised upon a profound moral disjuncture between Israelis and Palestinians. In the poster "Israel uses weapon to protect its civilians. Hamas uses civilians to protect its weapons", Palestinians are depicted as barbarians who ignore the elementary grammar of international law.

Israel's warfare is, however, not only about the re-signification of architectural structures, but also about the transformation of human beings into collateral damage, subjects who can be killed without violating international law. This is the subtext of the poster featuring Israel's Chief of Staff saying: "Even as we carry out strikes, we remember that there are civilians in Gaza. Hamas has turned them into hostages."

 

Again, the logic is clear. All civilians in Gaza are being held hostage by Hamas, which is considered a war crime and a gross violation of international law governing armed conflict. This, then, provides legal and moral justification against the accusation that Israel is the one killing civilians. Presumed human rights violations carried out by Palestinians against Palestinians - taking hostages and human shielding - thus become the legitimisation of lethal and indiscriminate violence on the part of the occupying force.

Hence, the use of human shields is not only a violation. In contemporary asymmetric urban wars, accusing the enemy of using human shields helps validate the claim that the death of "untargeted civilians" is merely collateral damage. When all civilians are potential human shields, when each and every civilian can become a hostage of the enemy, then all enemy civilians become killable.

"Some bomb shelters shelter people..."

In order for all this to be convincing, the Israeli military depicts the asymmetric context in which it unleashes its violence against a whole population as symmetric. This is carried out, for instance, through the poster "Some bomb shelters shelter people, some shelter bombs". Here a radically disproportionate situation is presented as if it were balanced.

The residents of Gaza are bombed by cutting edge F-16 fighter jets and drones, yet they do not have bomb shelters, and they have nowhere to flee. Israel's residents are bombed mostly by makeshift rockets, many of which have been intercepted by Iron Dome missiles. The majority of the population in Israel has access to shelters and can flee out of the rocket's range.

These powerful images, spread by the Israeli military through social media, attempt to transform the very presence of civilians as suspect in the areas it bombards, regardless of the fact that the areas it bombs are urban centres.

The crux of the matter is that in the context of contemporary asymmetric warfare, the weak do not have many options. When there are no bomb shelters, people remain at home during extensive bombardment. And if, like in the case of the Palestinians in Gaza, fleeing is not an option - because all exits from the strip have been closed, or because the neighbour's house is under the exact same threat as one's own, or because one is already a refugee and does not want to become a refugee anew - staying put, which the high-tech states term "illegal human shields," constitutes a form of resistance.

 

 

 

Neve Gordon is the author of Israel's Occupation.

Nicola Perugini is Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Italian Studies and Middle East Studies at Brown University. His forthcoming book is entitled The Human Right to Dominate.

I'm having troubles understanding this text, my English is kinda weak 

Can you sum it up for me? 

[Morphine Prince 109,683]

At least this thread is calm now. Hope it won't be locked because some of the perspectives I'm reading on here are interesting. 

[aphrodisease 231]

It's not every time, it's for 14 YEARS NOW. 

Try living even a single day with 12, 13, 15 sirens and rockets per day for 14 YEARS!!!

You fight Weapons with weapons.

 

In Gaza, there is no sirens, there is no "Iron Dome" ... stop complaining !