Israel

[When Skies Are Grey]

Just seen this thread, could sombody please summarise the contents for those of us that have just arrived?

 

Well there was this bloke called Moses.......

[Rog]

Just seen this thread, could sombody please summarise the contents for those of us that have just arrived?

 

Well there was this bloke called Moses.......

 

(Ex 4 : 10) Moses said to Yahweh, "Oh, Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before now, nor since you have spoken to your servant; for I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue."

 

---And he stuttered ---

 

Next

[Mr. Sausages]

This is my favourite extact. Genesis 6 - The flood.

 

11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. 16 Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive." 21 So Noah said to God "Hang on a second, two of everything? Oh, for fucks sake God. You're such a twat."

[matty]

Israel is quite blatantly committing war crimes against Lebanon, and should be brought to book.

 

Hizbollah is committing war crimes,and should also be brought to book, but this certainly IMHO doesn't give Israel the right to collectively punish Lebanon and mass-murder innocent civillians and children, and destroy a soveriegn nations infrastructure.

 

So-what if Iran is supplying Hizbollah with weapons, the US is supplying Israel with weapons, there's no moral high ground to be had by either party.

 

"We" went to war with Iraq in the 90's for invading Kuwait, can someone possibly provide some logical moral argument why "we" shouldn't go to war with Israel for invading Lebanon?????

[mollag]

Cos its got no oil mate, its all about theft.

[P.K.]

Israel is quite blatantly committing war crimes against Lebanon, and should be brought to book.

 

Hizbollah is committing war crimes,and should also be brought to book, but this certainly IMHO doesn't give Israel the right to collectively punish Lebanon and mass-murder innocent civillians and children, and destroy a soveriegn nations infrastructure.

 

So-what if Iran is supplying Hizbollah with weapons, the US is supplying Israel with weapons, there's no moral high ground to be had by either party.

 

"We" went to war with Iraq in the 90's for invading Kuwait, can someone possibly provide some logical moral argument why "we" shouldn't go to war with Israel for invading Lebanon?????

Errrrr, well Matty, there is the rather unpalatable fact that the bleeding hearts try to skate over that Hezbollah actually started this off by deliberately firing rockets at Israeli civilians from inside their own country - Lebanon. Now like any other nation Israel has the right to defend itself against an agressor. Hezbollah are also part of the Lebanese political setup so if you like it is the Lebanese government, albeit just a faction of it, that is the agressor which means that they ALL share collective responsibility. It's also not the fault of the IDF that Hezbollah deliberately mingle with the civilians as Hezbollah views civilian casualties as a win/win - excellent PR and recruitment material all in one and never mind the sufferings of the innocents, even if they are your own people. There has been a UN resolution for ages now demanding the disarming of Hezbollah. As the Lebanese government have done nothing it seems that the time has come when the IDF have to do it for them.

 

Dear me, just how many more times does this need to be spelt out......

[Rog]

Israel is quite blatantly committing war crimes against Lebanon, and should be brought to book.

 

Err, what war crimes?

 

Seriously, spell 'em out. There may well be (and probably are) some individuals who are committting war crimes, I know that if I were in this one I certainly would be, but that's another matter.

 

What war crimes as a nation are israel committing?

[When Skies Are Grey]

.....I know that if I were in this one I certainly would be, but that's another matter.

 

You advocating war crimes now??

[Rog]

.....I know that if I were in this one I certainly would be, but that's another matter.

 

You advocating war crimes now??

 

Just read what I wrote. All that I did write was that if I was in this war then I would not be paying too much attention to anything from Geneva. that is me. Personally.

[When Skies Are Grey]

.....I know that if I were in this one I certainly would be, but that's another matter.

 

You advocating war crimes now??

 

Just read what I wrote. All that I did write was that if I was in this war then I would not be paying too much attention to anything from Geneva. that is me. Personally.

 

And I am sure there are many more (on both sides) that would feel the same...and therefore there is unlikely to be any resolution to this in the near future. Another conflict at a local level that unfortunately has massive worldwide ramifications....my heart sinks

[Chinahand]

Err, what war crimes?

 

Seriously, spell 'em out. There may well be (and probably are) some individuals who are committting war crimes, I know that if I were in this one I certainly would be, but that's another matter.

 

What war crimes as a nation are israel committing?

 

Well if you are sincere in asking this question why don't you try reading this Human Rights Watch Report.

 

If you can't be bothered to do that why not try the summary.

 

Or how about this from the UN Human Rights Chief:

 

The UN's human rights chief, Louise Arbour, meanwhile, has condemned both Israel and Hezbollah for the suffering inflicted on civilians in Lebanon and northern Israel.

 

"Israeli attacks affecting civilians continue unabated," she told a special session of the UN Human Rights Council.

 

"Also unrelenting is Hezbollah's indiscriminate shelling of densely populated centres in northern Israel which has brought death and destruction. There have also been repeated allegations of Hezbollah's systematic use of civilians as human shields," she said.

 

Ms Arbour warned that commanders on both sides could face prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

 

Maybe you'll say they are biased etc etc, but the HRW report is a deliberate attempt to examine as dispassionately as possible what the IDF has been doing. The researchers undertaking it have experience of military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc ... Rog you are deliberately refusing to look, if you are saying the actions of the IDF have caused great concern by Human Rights Groups, the UN, etc etc, these people have also examined Hizbollah actions too and condemed them. Selectively choosing to agree with their condemnations of Hizbollah, while ignoring their condemnations of the IDF shows a bias ... you'll say of course your biased ... then your not asking the question above to get a proper anwser, just to boast and show off ... pathetic.

 

You still haven't done your International lawyering to tell me who a civillian is ... maybe the IDF doesn't know either?

 

 

 

The cases documented here reveal a systematic failure by the IDF to distinguish between combatants and civilians

 

Israeli forces have consistently launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious military gain but excessive civilian cost. In dozens of attacks, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some cases, the timing and intensity of the attack, the absence of a military target, as well as return strikes on rescuers, suggest that Israeli forces deliberately targeted civilians.

 

Human Rights Watch found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack. Hezbollah occasionally did store weapons in or near civilian homes and fighters placed rocket launchers within populated areas or near U.N. observers, which are serious violations of the laws of war because they violate the duty to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian casualties. However, those cases do not justify the IDF’s extensive use of indiscriminate force which has cost so many civilian lives. In none of the cases of civilian deaths documented in this report is there evidence to suggest that Hezbollah forces or weapons were in or near the area that the IDF targeted during or just prior to the attack.

 

The pattern of attacks during the Israeli offensive in Lebanon suggests that the failures cannot be explained or dismissed as mere accidents; the extent of the pattern and the seriousness of the consequences indicate the commission of war crimes.

 

While not the focus of this report, Human Rights Watch has separately and simultaneously documented violations of international humanitarian law by Hezbollah, including a pattern of attacks that amount to war crimes. Between July 12, when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight, and July 27, the group launched a reported 1,300 rockets into predominantly civilian areas in Israel, killing 18 civilians and wounding more than 300. Without guidance systems for accurate targeting, the rockets are inherently indiscriminate when directed toward civilian areas, especially cities, and thus are serious violations of the requirement of international humanitarian law that attackers distinguish at all times between combatants and civilians. Some of these rockets, Human Rights Watch found, are packed with thousands of metal ball-bearings, which spray more than 100 meters from the blast and compound the harm to civilians.

 

This report analyzes a selection of Israeli air and artillery attacks that together claimed at least 153 civilian lives, or over a third of the reported Lebanese deaths in the conflict’s first two weeks. Of the 153 civilian deaths documented in this report by name, sixty-three of the victims were children under the age of eighteen, and thirty-seven of them were under ten.

 

The report breaks civilian deaths into two categories: attacks on civilian homes and attacks on civilian vehicles. In both categories, victims and witnesses interviewed independently and repeatedly said that neither Hezbollah fighters nor Hezbollah weapons were present in the area during or just before the Israeli attack took place. While some individuals, out of fear or sympathy, may have been unwilling to speak about Hezbollah’s military activity, others were quite open about it. In totality, the consistency, detail, and credibility of testimony from a broad array of witnesses who did not speak to each other leave no doubt about the validity of the patterns described in this report. In many cases, witness testimony was corroborated by reports from international journalists and aid workers. During site visits conducted in Qana, Srifa, and Tyre, Human Rights Watch saw no evidence that there had been Hezbollah military activity around the areas targeted by the IDF during or just prior to the attack: no spent ammunition, abandoned weapons or military equipment, trenches, or dead or wounded fighters. Moreover, even if Hezbollah had been in a populated area at the time of an attack, Israel would still be legally obliged to take all feasible precautions to avoid or minimize civilian casualties resulting from its targeting of military objects or personnel. In the cases documented in this report, however, the IDF consistently tolerated a high level of civilian casualties for questionable military gain.

[Rog]

I know that in most circumstances in this present action against hez-b’allah a dead or injured terrorist immediately turns into a civilian the moment he -- or she -- is killed or injured.

 

I also know that supporters of terrorists are likewise terrorists, again until the moment that they are killed or injured at which point the magically become civilians.

 

I also know that kids who are part of the families of such people and who get killed or injured are victims OF the same terrorists described above.

 

I also know that the few real innocent civilians left in the theatre of war who are killed or injured are, like the kids, victims OF the same terrorists described above.

 

You want to know who a civilian is? How about the people just going about their daily tasks who get blown up by a homicide bomber, or by a deliberately aimed or randomly fired rocket into Israel.

 

Or maybe to be found on the now infamous Syrian sponsored Death list in The Lebanon.

[Lonan3]

I know that in most circumstances in this present action against hez-b’allah a dead or injured terrorist immediately turns into a civilian the moment he -- or she -- is killed or injured.

 

It depends on your point of view. It's just as easy to say that a dead or injured civilian turns into a terrorist the moment he -- or she -- is killed or injured.

[Rog]

I know that in most circumstances in this present action against hez-b’allah a dead or injured terrorist immediately turns into a civilian the moment he -- or she -- is killed or injured.

 

It depends on your point of view. It's just as easy to say that a dead or injured civilian turns into a terrorist the moment he -- or she -- is killed or injured.

 

Not entirely.

 

Considering all things, the warning given by the IDF to civilians to get out of the area, and despite all the BS making out that this was impossible it was not, the targeting of attacks onto identified military targets (don’t ignore the use of Israeli drone aircraft identifying rocket launch sites) and so forth, makes the probability of a casualty far more likely to be a hez-b’allah terrorist or one of his supporters than a completely innocent and unaligned civilian.

 

Also consider how hez-b’allah terrorists and their families have swamped the area over the last six years unseating the bona-fide real civilians in the process.

 

Then there is the press manipulation. Notwithstanding that “Littlegreenfootballs” (http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php ) is a highly partisan site there are some things that just can’t be denied and the manipulation of the press that has taken place to make the situation on the ground look very different than it actually is happens to be one such.

 

Personally I remain delighted that the defensive action has gone as well as it has especially when it is now so very obvious that the undisclosed intel that hez-b’allah were close to launching an unprovoked attack against Israel has been proven to be correct by the existence and form of the stockpiles of weapons as well as the huge military constructions that are admittedly being found to be so hard to penetrate.

 

I’ll bet there’s a few hez-b’allah operatives who have had or will have a very sticky time from their masters in Iran and Syria for jumping the gun and so opening the game before they were quite ready for their opening shots in THEIR version of the game which would have started by a largely unexpected barrage of rockets against an unsuspecting – and unwarned – Israeli civilian population.

[captain jiggyflaps]

Now I remember why I stopped coming on these forums!