The Truth About the Gaza Massacre

[altruismsuffers]

The Truth About the Gaza Massacre
An Eye opening montage of news clips and photos that tell the truth about the events in Gaza.  60% of the attacks in Gaza have killed innocent women and children.  United Nations safe houses have been targeted, Schools have been targeted, United Nations Aide Conveys have been targeted, and illegal chemical weapons have been used.

[guido911]

WOW! What a balanced and fair depiction of the conflict in Gaza. Both points of view equally represented. The IDF and Israel are quite obviously evil and Hamas are innocent victims. Thanks again ALT for just being you.

[tim huntzinger]

MLK's littler known address: 'Silence is Betrayal' (ie. 'Take Your Racist Anti-Christian War and Shove It' speech)

And the time has come for America to hear the truth about this tragic war. I have chosen to preach about the war in Vietnam today because I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who - in a period of moral crisis - maintained their neutrality. There is a time when silence is betrayal.

'As I have walked among the angry young men, I have told them molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. They ask, 'What about Vietnam?' They ask if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems. And I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today: my own Government.' (paraphrased)

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! Hope to see ya'll out at the MLK Parade tommorow!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80Bsw0UG-U

[cannon_fodder]

60% of the attacks have killed innocent women and children?  

1) Interesting statistic.  Who kept track of every attack and then verified the causalities?  

What counts as an attack?  Is a rifle shot an attack?  Each house raid?  Artillery fire?  Just air strikes?

What counts as a child?

What counts as innocent?  If a child or a woman has a rifle are they included in the stat?  How can you tell what/if they were threatening?

I don't mean to make light of civilian casualties and acknowledge that it happened with alarming regularity, but that number is certainly a farce.  

2)  100% of rocket attacks from Gaza were TARGETED AT innocent women and children.

100% of bus bombs,
100% of pizza parlors bombed,
100% of markets bombed,
were targeted at women and children.

100% > 60%.  So assuming your number is correct and assuming that Israel targeted women and children in each of those instances, Israel is 40% better than Hamas.  Objectively, you're taking the wrong side.

3) How many of those women and children were killed because they were used as shields?  

If the roof of their house was being used as an attack point (for rocket fire, mortars, or a shooting platform) and they are killed when their house is shelled - are they innocent victims?  My answer is yes.  But I can't blame the military men who destroyed the house, I blame the ones on the roof.

4) In other breaking news - Hamas uses vehicles marked UN to transport weapons.  They use schools, mosques, and UN compounds as firing positions.  

Not saying that is WHY they were targeted in these instances, but when a soldier has to look at normally off limit targets as a possible threat such things are far more likely to happen.  Again, I blame the side using such things instead of the jumpy soldier.  If schools were never used by Hamas in aggressive actions it is highly unlikely they would be targeted.

Also worth noting that Hamas uses non-uniformed soldiers as would be required of a nation state by the Hague and Geneva conventions.

5) By illegal chemical weapons I assume you are referring to white phosphorous.   It is illegal for people who signed on to the arms agreement banning it.  Israel nor Hamas signed the agreement (the US did not either, FWIW).  Thus, not illegal.
- - - - - - - -

Again, Israel is not in the right.  Hamas is not in the right.  In choosing between the two wrongs I choose the one that at very least  pretends to avoid killing women and children over the one that exalts in and proclaims a desire to kill as many women and children as possible.

[guido911]

"Will you just shut up CF. It's all Israel's fault. The sooner you warm up to that fact, the better you will feel."

--The Rotting Corpse of Yassir Arafat

[we vs us]

quote:Originally posted by cannon_fodder



Again, Israel is not in the right.  Hamas is not in the right.  In choosing between the two wrongs I choose the one that at very least  pretends to avoid killing women and children over the one that exalts in and proclaims a desire to kill as many women and children as possible.

Hamas isn't necessarily "a side."  It's 1/3rd of a side, maybe. It's a political party with rockets.  Point being that, while Hamas certainly isn't in the right, they're not entirely representative of the people (700ish in the last couple of weeks?) being killed.  

Guerrilla warfare offers a glaring but insoluble double standard.  You can't bring your standing army in to clear cut an opposing population to get at the guerrilla fighters.  It doesn't matter how successful the guerrilla guys are against you. As soon as you go against a civilian population, you've lost your moral standing. Challenge:  name a conflict where doing what the Israelis have done has succeeded in ending a guerrilla challenge and/or gone forward with international aplomb.

And in a broader sense, this battle has been fought before.  This is that perfect cycle of violence that has just enough internal equilibrium to perpetuate itself indefinitely. Why we're not trying to use our international standing to knock the gyroscope off course is beyond me.  (The not so secret secret of this offensive is that the Isrealis are getting it in before Obama takes office.  Bush will allow this brand of "self-defense" because it squares with his own conception of how to war with terrorists, while Obama will almost definitely not).

[cannon_fodder]

Wevus, I understand completely.  I tried to simplify my argument as much as my conscience would allow in order to counter his position.  Perhaps I should have better disclaimed my post.