Israeli airstrikes in Gaza kill more than 200

Why? Occupation costs them more lives than the rockets. What strategic interests are you speaking of?

I get annoyed by this: 2 wrongs do not make a right:

if someone is firng rockets at you: apprehend the wrongdoers: bombing random buildings and murdering innocent people doesnt help.

It is such a simple concept: because we refuse to do the right thing: which would be to stop supporting genocide by Israel:

the logic is the same as used by Al qaeda to justify 9-11. America was hurting us: therefore we will hurt America.

No one condemned Israel for dropping over a MILLION cluster bombs in Lebanon:

It is a scandal that we are bank rolling this regime.

I can't understand how anyone can even try to justify indiscriminate killing.

My family are originally from London which was bombed daily by the Nazis during the second world war. People who get bombed become more bitter and resolute.

latest reports are that Israel is attempting to weaken popular support for Hamas....force the palestinians to turn away from Hamas. This is a direct assault on the principles of democracy,

it is up to the palistinains to decide who they want to represent them,

it is none of Israel's business.

Waging a military campaign to effect political choice of another peoples is highly offensive behaviour.

What would a proportional response be? Randomly lobbing small rockets and mortars into Gaza? Sending in a couple of cops and try to arrest the terrorists? I wonder how they would do that. Do the terrorists shooting rockets and mortars into Israel wear uniforms or something to differentiate themselves from the general populace?

Seriously, what would a proportional response look like from Israel?

About those "Rocket Attacks" against Israel. . . . .

West Bank & Gaza Strip, Palestine -- As the world enters day #3 of the Israeli military attacks against the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the U.S. media is replete with stories about how Israel is merely defending itself from "rocket attacks." Let's talk about that.

The so-called "rockets" are little more than Bottle Rockets used by American children

Most of the "rockets" being fired at Israel, land harmlessly in the desert. Rarely if ever is anyone injured by these rockets and NOT ONE person has been killed in Israel by these rockets in years!

Yet within the past 3 days, the Israeli military has seen fit to kill over 700 unarmed men, women and children inside the West Bank and Gaza strip.

Let's move on to yet another item that the U.S. Media is repeating over and over and over: The Palestinians freely elected the Hamas Party into power and, according to Israel, "Hamas is a terrorist organization."

In fact, many dimwitted Americans swallow this line of reasoning hook, line and sinker, then repeat it as though it makes any sense. Let's consider this argument for a moment.

Yes, the people of Palestine freely elected the Hamas Party into power. That is their right. If my fellow Americans think that bombing people over who they elect is a valid thing, then let me know.

One thing that is absolutely NOT being reported anywhere in the U.S. Media is WHY the rockets are being fired into Israel. Do you know why they're being fired?

For over a year, Israel has sealed the borders of the West Bank and Gaza strip, not allowing anyone to work, earn money or - here's the real problem - get food deliveries IN.

The American government knows that Israel has not allowed Palestinians to go to work for over a year. The American government knows that Israel has not allowed food shipments into Gaza or the West Bank for over a year. The American government knows that Palestinians have been starving to death. This is genocide, taking place right in front of us!

The American government has not only stood-by and done nothing to stop this genocide, they have actually aided and abetted it by supplying Israel with the weapons used to perpetrate the genocide.

A must read for all of us who think that proportionality matters:

Can Israel Win the Gaza War?
It depends how you define success.
By Shmuel Rosner
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2008, at 4:02 PM ET

A target in the northern Gaza Strip following an Israeli air raidIn a 2006 article about Israel and the doctrine of proportionality, Lionel Beehner of the Council on Foreign Relations explained that applying the test of "proportionality" to Israel's military operations can be a tricky exercise. According to the doctrine"originated in the 1907 Hague Conventions""a state is legally allowed to unilaterally defend itself and right a wrong provided the response is proportional to the injury suffered. The response must also be immediate and necessary, refrain from targeting civilians, and require only enough force to reinstate the status quo ante."
http://www.slate.com/id/2207636/

another:

Quote:

The laws of war

Proportional to what?
Dec 30th 2008
From The Economist print edition

The rights and wrongs of killing civilians


IN THE arithmetic of death, the latest fight between Israel and Hamas has been an unequal contest: more than 350 Palestinians killed in Israeli air strikes in the first four days, many of them civilians, against four Israelis killed by Hamas’s rockets. But does such one-sided bloodshed make Israel guilty of using “disproportionate force”, as argued by, among others, Amnesty International and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, just ending his six-month presidency of the European Union?

Proportionality is intimately bound up with notions of the just war, and has been enshrined in treaties regulating warfare’s conduct since the Hague Convention of 1907. But familiar as it is, proportionality is a slippery idea. It has two different meanings in Western theory. On the grounds for going to war, jus ad bellum, the cause must be important enough to justify force; any good that will follow must outweigh the inevitable pain and destruction. In the conduct of war, jus in bello, any action must weigh the military gain against the likely harm to civilians.

Human-rights law has developed mostly in terms of jus in bello. The Geneva Conventions of 1949, dealing mainly with the protection of non-combatants in conflicts between states, were updated in 1977 to include more explicitly wars within states. Israel and the United States have not ratified the later protocols, though they do not really question the principle that armies must avoid “an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated”.

The arguments are over the nebulous facts of a particular incident. Did Israel do enough to avoid civilian deaths? Do Palestinian policemen count as combatants? For Israel, the use of overwhelming force is both legitimate and, given its desire to restore its “deterrent effect” towards its enemies, sometimes necessary. Israel says that intent is what matters: it says it tries to avoid civilian deaths, whereas Hamas deliberately seeks to kill Israeli civilians with its rockets, relatively ineffective as they may be. Hamas responds with two arguments: as the disproportionately weaker party, Palestinians must use the crude means at their disposal to free their lands from Israeli occupation; more controversially, it often says there are no Israeli civilians since most Israelis serve in the army.

Proportionality in jus ad bellum and jus in bello are hard to separate: indiscriminate killing will colour the view of whether a war is justified; and even proportionate actions in battle will be denounced if the war is deemed unjust. In the Israeli-Palestinian context, arguments about legality fast turn into ones about history. If the tit-for-tat starting point is Hamas’s rocket attacks, then the Israelis have a right to defend themselves; if it is Israel’s occupation of Palestine or the dispossession of Palestinians when Israel was born in 1948, then Palestinians can argue for a right to resist. Proportional or not, the killing of innocents will go on until the dispute is settled.

http://www.economist.com/world/mideast-africa/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12867302&source=hptextfeature

Israel has made some half assed attempts at peace....

I still maintain: that bombing and mass murder is wrong: it was what Tim McVeigh was executed for.

I think accusing Israel of restraint is laughable.

They are behaving like genocidal bullies.

Americans seem blind to this: can anyone explain how bombing a University helps things.

Or the murder of an entire family belonging to a politician with who's views they disagree.

Murdering children cannot be justified.

To pretend to do so just shows how far down America has gone morally.

This article is out of date: the death toll is now nearer 400. Does anyone want a sweepstake on how many more murders the Israeli government will commit?

I'm talking absolutes: murder of civilians by dropping bombs on them is wrong:

This is not revenge, it is not justice. It is genocide.

As long as you do not condemn murder you cannnot hold any moral ground at all.

If the Israelis read the Old testament there is a commandment that reads thoult shalt not Kill.

There are certain standards that a country should adhere to. Not invading and bombing its neighbours is a start.

Israel denies the right of Palestine to exist:

The land on which Israel stands was stolen by force from its rightful owners.

Without compensation. It is this basic injustice that has fuelled all the conflict.

This is compounded by the fact that Israel will not negotiate with anyone.

Can't say for certain, Fountofw ....

Doesn't sound all that much different to "collatoral damage", or "friendly fire", (& etc, etc, etc) to me. The folks who used those ridiculous terms to mask atrocities weren't exactly being satirical.

msolga wrote:

Can't say for certain, Fountofw ....

Doesn't sound all that much different to "collatoral damage", or "friendly fire", (& etc, etc, etc) to me. The folks who used those ridiculous terms to mask atrocities weren't exactly being satirical.

The terms are not ridiculous, and are not atrocities.

Was British bombing of German civilians during WWII morally wrong?

Yes: the British Bomber High Command have admitted this: Their argument was this : during time of war they could hardly pack up when infantry and navy were being killed. They admit it did nothing to shorten the war. They wanted to do their bit. After the War all the commanders were honoured: except "bomber" Harris,head of bomber command.
When the war ended and the United Nations was formed, including a World Court. Bombing of civilians is officially a war crime.

As Are collective punishments.

Of course, countries which have no respect for law, Including the U.S. and Israel didn't sign up for this.

The American bombing of Dresden did nothing to shorten the War, it was considered the greatest massacre in History.Read Slaughterhouse 5.

Foofie wrote:

JTT wrote:

A large majority of Americans are inured to the slaughter of innocents outside their borders. Water off a duck's back.

9/11 had an inuring effect? Marines barracks blown up in Lebanon had an inuring effect? Blackhawk down had an inuring effect? Mubai had an inuring effect? Afghanistan had an inuring effect? The surge in Iraq had an inuring effect? The milk of human kindness flows from radical Muslim terrorists; that must be causing an inuring effect.

Note that you assholes were in other people's countries. I clearly wasn't referring to these legitimate attacks on invasive and obnoxious US forces.

Now do a little research. You've presented a fine example of the scum that I referred to in my previous post. The number of innocents killed by radical Muslims doesn't come anywhere close to the number of innocents that America has murdered.

... for example: two very different persectives from today's AGE letters to the editor:

Quote:

Israel must end its brutal assault

WE ARE Australian Jews who condemn the military attacks on Gaza. Israel has the right to protect its citizens and demand an end to the crime of Palestinian rockets targeting civilians. However, this cannot be used as a pretext for the grossly disproportionate military assault on Gaza because it was Israel that violated the truce in November.

The home-made rockets have caused relatively few Israeli casualties. By contrast, Israel's bombardment has caused about 400 deaths and 2000 casualties. Civilian targets include a university, television station, factories, mosques, ministry offices, parliament and refugee camps.

The war comes after the Israeli blockade that created a humanitarian crisis under which the Palestinians suffered from lack of food, electricity, medicines and hospital equipment. The blockade was condemned by the UN and, like the Israeli airstrikes, constitutes illegal collective punishment prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.

We call for an end to attacks on civilians by Palestinians and Israelis. However, since Palestinians have no means of self-defence against the Middle East's most powerful force, we particularly call on Israel to end its assault and reconsider its rejection of the UN Security Council's call for a ceasefire.

There can be no solution without Israel being a willing partner to dialogue.

Antony Loewenstein (author), Linda Jaivin (writer), Moss Cass (former Labor MP), Ian Cohen (NSW Greens MP), Andrew Riemer (writer and critic) and 108 others

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/letters/so-we-use-less-but-pay-more-20090105-7ajx.html?page=-1

I ask a simple question: at which stage do you consider murder of innocents and genocide wrong:

it seems the American backers of the slaughter won't even call for a cease fire.

The strategic objectives of the government of Israel have not changed in the sixty years since the partition of Palestine. To Wit: The State of Israel will take any action that is necessary to, in the words of Theodore Herzl, “drive the penniless Arabs from the land”; Create conditions on the ground that engender “transfer” (forced immigration of indigenous Palestinian Arabs to other states such as Jordan) and the creation of the land of(eretz) Israel that includes ALL of Palestine.