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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN Well, luckily for me I am similar to most people here in that I don't give two shits about your opinion in politics.

I know, it's crazy... because for someone who doesn't give 2 shits, you seem to have a desire to try and refute my points of view quite often

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Originally posted by The17sss I know, it's crazy... because for someone who doesn't give 2 shits, you seem to have a desire to try and refute my points of view quite often

actually, i can't remember the last time i bothered with anything more than a 1-liner.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN The last time I checked, the forceful removal of a people from their land is defined as genocide as far as the UN is concerned. And this is what israel has been doing gradually for the last several decades. How many UN resolutions have called for the abandonment of occupied-territory settlements? How many people have been displaced to make room for jewish-only towns? I wasn't aware there had to be "X amount of deaths per Y hours" to classify something as genocide?

genocide is "The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group." according to most dictionaries.

applying the un's newspeak, i suppose matricide would be the forceful removal of your mother from your property.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN And why do you think current military activities will be any more successful in defeating the terrorists and terrorism than any of the failed operations in the past? Whilst I certainly blame hamas for their lack of commitment to politics without violence, israel's continued prescence in the occupied territories is hardly a blameless exercise. In other words, why is your emphasis purely on hamas' rather insiginifant commitment to violence, and not on israel's policy of creeping expansion?

when did israel last expand? (not a rhetorical question nor a bait, i sincerely don't know)

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Originally posted by Psy-T genocide is "The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group." according to most dictionaries. applying the un's newspeak, i suppose matricide would be the forceful removal of your mother from your property.

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Punishable Acts: The following are genocidal acts when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence: Killing members of the group includes direct killing and actions causing death. Causing serious bodily or mental harm includes inflicting trauma on members of the group through widespread torture, rape, sexual violence, forced or coerced use of drugs, and mutilation. Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy a group includes the deliberate deprivation of resources needed for the group’s physical survival, such as clean water, food, clothing, shelter or medical services. Deprivation of the means to sustain life can be imposed through confiscation of harvests, blockade of foodstuffs, detention in camps, forcible relocation or expulsion into deserts. Prevention of births includes involuntary sterilization, forced abortion, prohibition of marriage, and long-term separation of men and women intended to prevent procreation. Forcible transfer of children may be imposed by direct force or by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or other methods of coercion. The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines children as persons under the age of 18 years. Genocidal acts need not kill or cause the death of members of a group. Causing serious bodily or mental harm, prevention of births and transfer of children are acts of genocide when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence.

http://www.preventgenocide.org/geno...fficialtext.htm

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Originally posted by Psy-T when did israel last expand? (not a rhetorical question nor a bait, i sincerely don't know)

i have no idea.

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Originally posted by Psy-T when did israel last expand? (not a rhetorical question nor a bait, i sincerely don't know)

When their settlers moved into the West Bank and Gaza.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN http://www.preventgenocide.org/geno...fficialtext.htm

meh, just look at the etymology of the word.

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN i have no idea.

you refer to some policy of 'creeping expansion' by israel while being as clueless as me to when they last expanded?

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Originally posted by Krypton When their settlers moved into the West Bank and Gaza.

that doesn't answer my question. why do you expect i'd know when that was? especially given my last question. :S

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Originally posted by Psy-T that doesn't answer my question. why do you expect i'd know when that was? especially given my last question. :S

I guess officially 1967. But settlements have been sprouting up since then, especially in the 1990's.

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Originally posted by Psy-T meh, just look at the etymology of the word.

im sorry if geneva isn't good enough for you

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Originally posted by Psy-T you refer to some policy of 'creeping expansion' by israel while being as clueless as me to when they last expanded?

well, im not a fucking map-reader am i? but what we all know is that israel maintains and protects illegal settlements in the occupied territories.

as i posted above

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Annexation Israeli policy makers are facing two very different realities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the former, they are finishing construction of their eastern border. Their internal ideological debate is over, and their master plan for annexing half of the West Bank is gaining speed. The last phase was delayed due to the promises made by Israel, under the Road Map, not to build new settlements. Israel found two ways of circumventing this. First, it defined a third of the West Bank as Greater Jerusalem, which allowed it to build towns and community centers within this new annexed area. Second, it expanded old settlements to such proportions that there was no need to build new ones. Creeping Transfer The settlements, army bases, roads and the wall will allow Israel to annex almost half of the West Bank by 2010. Within these territories, Israeli authorities will continue to implement creeping transfer policies against the considerable number of Palestinians who remain. There is no rush. As far as the Israeli are concerned they have the upper hand there; the daily abusive and dehumanizing combination of army and bureaucracy effectively adds to the dispossession process.

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One Israeli group, Settlement Watch, says in the three months to May, West Bank settlements expanded by 26 hectares (65 acres).The government has approved construction of thousands more homes in the three main settlement blocs on the West Bank, encouraged by an apparent endorsement by George Bush for their eventual annexation. In a letter to Mr Sharon, Mr Bush praised the Gaza pullout and agreed that "in light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centres", it was unrealistic to expect a full return to the 1967 borders. Dror Etkes, head of Settlement Watch, said that the expansion of Jewish outposts and continuing house building since Mr Sharon announced his plan in December was evidence that the government was seeking more territory.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jul/27/israel

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Since 1967, Israel has built 120 settlements in the West Bank, and 12 settlements in East Jerusalem. The Interior Ministry calls them “communities,” though some settlements’ land boundaries are not contiguous. In addition to the settlements, Israelis have built 100 so-called “outposts” that don’t have the status of settlements in the Interior Ministry’s eyes but do enjoy the same protection from the Israeli military, the same funding from Israeli nationals and the same special treatment from Israeli authorities, such as roads, utilities and schools for the exclusive use of settlers. The “outposts” are, in fact, settlements by another name, as a report on the “outposts” commissioned in 2005 by then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon described them: In fact, the unauthorized outposts phenomenon is a continuation of the settlement enterprise in the territories. But while in the distant past the Israeli governments officially acknowledged and encouraged the settlement enterprise, in some of the years, a major change took place in the beginning of the nineties. The Israeli governments were no longer officially involved in the establishment of settlements, apparently due to Israel’s international situation, and the negative position of most nations towards the settlement enterprise. That was not the case for public authorities and other Israeli government bodies, who took, along with others, a major role in establishing the unauthorized outposts. Some of which were inspired by the political echelon, sometimes by overlooking, sometimes by actual encouragement and support, but never as a result of an authorized resolution by the qualified political echelon of the State. Peace Now, the Israeli human rights organization, reported that as of April 2007, there were 102 “outposts” in the West Bank. “The outposts in which construction and expansion was noted during these months are located throughout the whole of the West Bank,” Peace Now noted. “Within the context of the ‘Road Map’ which was approved by Israel as early as in June 2003, Israel undertook to evacuate the outposts which had been established after March 2001. The reference is to approx. 50 outposts, none of which have been evacuated to date. As expected, these outposts have continued to expand, even during the last few months.”

http://middleeast.about.com/od/isra.../a/me080826.htm

you can see why i might not have a proper, exact date for when the last time israel(is) chose to steal land.

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Some pretty disturbing stuff going on for both sides... not surprising though given the state of open warfare.

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Both sides in Gaza war using lethal new tricks By Steven Erlanger Sunday, January 11, 2009 JERUSALEM: The grinding urban battle unfolding in the densely populated Gaza Strip is a war of new tactics, quick adaptation and lethal tricks. Hamas, with training from Iran and Hezbollah, has used the past two years to turn Gaza into a deadly maze of tunnels, booby traps and sophisticated roadside bombs. Weapons caches are hidden in mosques, schoolyards and civilian houses, and the leadership's war room is a bunker beneath Gaza's largest hospital, Israeli intelligence officials say. Unwilling to take Israel's bait and come into the open, Hamas militants are fighting in civilian clothes; even the police have been ordered to take off their uniforms. The militants emerge from tunnels to shoot automatic weapons or antitank missiles, then disappear back inside, hoping to lure the Israeli soldiers with their fire. In one apartment building in Zeitoun, in northern Gaza, Hamas set an inventive, deadly trap. According to an Israeli journalist embedded with Israeli troops, the militants placed a mannequin in a hallway off the main entrance. They hoped to draw fire from Israeli soldiers who might, through the blur of night vision goggles and split-second decisions, mistake the figure for a fighter. The mannequin was rigged to explode and bring down the building. In an interview, the reporter, Ron Ben-Yishai, a senior military correspondent for the newspaper Yediot Aharanot, said soldiers also found a pile of weapons with a grenade launcher on top. When they moved the launcher, "they saw a detonator light up, but somehow it didn't go off." The Israeli Army has also come prepared for a battle both sides knew was inevitable. Every soldier, Israeli officials say, is outfitted with a ceramic vest and helmet. Every unit has dogs trained to sniff out explosive charges and people hidden in tunnels, as well as combat engineers trained to defuse hidden bombs. To avoid booby traps, the Israelis say, they enter buildings by breaking through side walls, rather than going in the front. Once inside, they move from room to room, battering holes in interior walls to avoid exposure to snipers and suicide bombers dressed as civilians, with explosive belts hidden beneath winter coats. The Israelis say they are also using new weapons, like a small-diameter smart bomb, the GBU 39, which Israel bought last autumn from the United States. The bomb, which is very accurate, has a small explosive, as little 27 to 36 kilograms, or 60 to 80 pounds, to minimize collateral damage in an urban environment. But it can also penetrate the earth to hit bunkers or tunnels. The Israelis, too, are resorting to tricks. Israelis are telephoning Gazans and, in good Arabic, pretending to be sympathetic Egyptians, Saudis, Jordanians or Libyans, Gazans say and Israel has confirmed. After expressing horror at the Israeli war and asking about the family, the callers ask about local conditions, whether the family supports Hamas and if there are fighters in the building or the neighborhood. Karim abu Shaban, 21, who lives in Gaza City, said he and his neighbors all had gotten such calls. His first caller had an Egyptian accent. "Oh, God help you, God be with you," the caller began. "It started very supportive," he said, and then the questions started. The next call came five minutes later. That caller had an Algerian accent and asked if he had reached Gaza. Shaban said he answered, "No, Tel Aviv," and hung up. Interviews last week with senior Israeli intelligence and military officers, both active and retired, as well as with military experts and residents of Gaza itself, made it clear that the battle - among civilians and between enemies who had long prepared for this fight - is now a slow, nasty business of asymmetrical urban warfare. Gaza's civilians - with nowhere to flee, given that the borders are closed - are "the meat in the sandwich," as one UN worker said, requesting anonymity. It is also clear that both sides are evolving tactics to the new battlefield, then adjusting them quickly. To that end, Israeli intelligence is detaining large numbers of young Gazan men to interrogate them for local knowledge and Hamas tactics. Last week, Israel captured a hand-drawn Hamas map in a house in Al Atatra, near Beit Lahiya, which showed planned defensive positions for the neighborhood, mine and booby trap placements, including a rigged gasoline station, and directions for snipers to shoot next to a mosque. Numerous tunnels were marked. A new Israeli weapon is tailored to the Hamas tactic of asking civilians to stand on the roofs of buildings so Israeli pilots will not bomb. The Israelis counter with missiles designed, paradoxically, not to explode. They aim the missiles at empty areas of the roofs to frighten residents into leaving the buildings, a tactic called "a knock on the roof." The most important strategic decision the Israelis have made so far, according to senior military officers and analysts, is to approach their incursion as a war, not a police operation. Civilians are warned by leaflets, loudspeakers and telephone calls to evacuate battle areas. But troops are instructed to protect themselves first, and civilians second. Officers say that means Israeli infantry units are going in "heavy." If they draw fire, they return it with heavy firepower. If they are told to reach an objective, they first call in artillery or airpower and use tank fire. Then they move, but only behind tanks and armored bulldozers, riding in armored personnel carriers, spending as little time in the open as possible. As the commander of the army's elite combat engineering unit, Yahalom, told the Israeli press Wednesday: "We are very violent. We do not balk at any means to protect the lives of our soldiers." His name cannot be published under censorship rules. "Urban warfare is the most difficult battlefield, where Hamas and Islamic Jihad have a relative advantage, with local knowledge and prepared positions," said Jonathan Fighel of Israel's International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism. "Hamas has a doctrine; this is not a gang of Rambos. The Israeli military has to find the stitches to unpick, how to counterbalance and surprise." Israeli troops are moving slowly and, they hope, unpredictably, trying not to stay in one place for long to entice Hamas fighters "to come out and confront them," Fighel said. Today, he said, "the mindset from top to bottom is fight and fight cruel; this is a war, not another pinpoint operation." Israeli officials say that they are obeying the rules of war and trying hard not to hurt noncombatants but that Hamas is using civilians as human shields in the expectation that Israel will try to avoid killing them. Israeli press officers call the tactics of Hamas cynical, illegal and inhumane; even Israel's critics argue that Hamas's regular use of rockets to fire at Israeli civilians in Israel, and its use of civilians as shields, are also violations of the rules of war. Israeli military men and analysts say its urban guerrilla tactics are deliberate, including the widespread use of civilian structures and tunnels, and come from the Iranian Army's tactical training and the lessons of the 2006 war between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hamas rocket and weapons caches, including rocket launchers, have been discovered in and under mosques, schools and civilian homes. The Israeli intelligence chief, Yuval Diskin, in a report to the Israeli cabinet, said the Gaza-based leadership of Hamas was in underground housing beneath the No.2 building of Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza. That allegation cannot be confirmed. While The New York Times and some other news organizations have local or Gaza-based Palestinian correspondents, any Israeli citizen or Israeli with dual citizenship has been banned from entering Gaza for more than two years, and any foreign correspondent who did not enter the territory before a six-month cease-fire with Hamas ended Dec. 17 has been prevented from entering. Israel has also managed to block cellphone bandwidth, so very few amateur cellphone photographs are getting out of Gaza. But Israeli tactics have caused episodes of severe civilian casualties that have created an international uproar, both in the Arab world and the West. In one widely reported episode, 43 people died when the Israelis shelled a street next to a UN school in northern Jabaliya where refugees were taking shelter. The Israelis said they returned fire in response to mortar shells fired at Israeli troops, which is legal, but there are questions about whether the force used was proportional under the laws of war, given the danger to noncombatants. The school attack is just one example where Israel may be able to dismantle Hamas's military structure while losing the battle for world opinion and leaving Hamas politically still in charge of Gaza. Those, too, are realities and risks of urban warfare. Taghreed El-Khodary contributed reporting from Gaza.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01...ast/tactics.php

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN Well, let's look at our most recent high-profile example. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/a...20352006en.html The full report may be read here http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/a...20332006en.html And from human rights watch http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/08/...ate-bombardment I understand the argument, I just think it’s a moot point because such organisations will always do this, knowing that if/when retribution comes it will make israel look bad. Im not criticising their decision to engage in warfare in population centres, im criticising their decision to invade based on the low level threat they have been enduring. I never said it was "punishment"; but state's have an obligation to grade the threats to their property and people and respond accordingly. At least, that's how mature states operate in regards to foreign policy or international relations. By your reasoning any state should be able to do whatever they wish as long as the force is appropriate to accomplish whatever aim they desire. Not a very wise yardstick to use world-wide I wouldn't have thought. The last time I checked, the forceful removal of a people from their land is defined as genocide as far as the UN is concerned. And this is what israel has been doing gradually for the last several decades. How many UN resolutions have called for the abandonment of occupied-territory settlements? How many people have been displaced to make room for jewish-only towns? I wasn't aware there had to be "X amount of deaths per Y hours" to classify something as genocide? Sure, this is merely opinion but just wanted to point out that im not the only one that thinks so. http://www.countercurrents.org/pappe280108.htm And why do you think current military activities will be any more successful in defeating the terrorists and terrorism than any of the failed operations in the past? Whilst I certainly blame hamas for their lack of commitment to politics without violence, israel's continued prescence in the occupied territories is hardly a blameless exercise. In other words, why is your emphasis purely on hamas' rather insiginifant commitment to violence, and not on israel's policy of creeping expansion? Well, that's where we'd agree that hamas need to learn what it means to be elected officials. But israel needs to abandon their process of settlement in the occupied territories, and stop carving up ghetto gaza and the west bank for their own Lebensraum. I wish I could find that picture of the israeli roads that criss-cross all over the territories making any chance of a real & viable palestinian state a fucking joke.

Thanks for the links. Very good stuff. Finally can use some strong proof in battling this discussion on some other forums and discussions that I am a part of elsewhere ... especially on that Lebanon war. Almost forgot about that one, Israel really pulled a number there. I still have in my mind the pictures of Israeli children autographing and signing bombs before they are about to be unleashed on Lebanon.

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