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Originally posted by Fir3start3r With that kind of logic, who needs enemies?

Obviously people like you. What...you think they just woke up one day and decided to start firing rockets? Gaza's economy is completely ruined. And here you, and those of your ideological view, think they just launch rockets for fun.

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Originally posted by Krypton Hamas was elected by the Palestinian people in a free and fair election.

thats fukkin priceless, dude. never once have you pulled that utterly lame and intellectually shallow apology when your elected officials did something you didn't care for.

as you've no doubt heard before, but managed to let go in one ear and out the other in haste to trash your own country- "ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!!!" - write that shit down this time since you've recently participated in your own elections here

anyways here's the article about Arab leaders and the terrorist organization that is Hamas >LINK<

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I haven't heard of any ties of Hamas to Iran,

because you don't pay attention. >HERE< this is not news.

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but if there is, so fucking what? We have supported terrorist groups all over the world.

this is not political discourse. it's what's wrong with modern political discourse.

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Originally posted by Q5echo thats fukkin priceless, dude. never once have you pulled that utterly lame and intellectually shallow apology when your elected officials did something you didn't care for. as you've no doubt heard before, but managed to let go in one ear and out the other in haste to trash your own country- "ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!!!" - write that shit down this time since you've recently participated in your own elections here

WTF are you going on about?

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anyways here's the article about Arab leaders and the terrorist organization that is Hamas >LINK< Oh thank you. A "What officials say" article. As always anonymous officials. [quote]because you don't pay attention. >HERE< this is not news.

Riiight. Am I not allowed to say when I don't know something? Never said there weren't any links...

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this is not political discourse. it's what's wrong with modern political discourse.

As always, never hesitating to completely disregard the consequences of our own actions. It's always them right? It's always those mean terrorists who want to blow themselves up.

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Originally posted by Krypton WTF are you going on about?

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Originally posted by Krypton Hamas was elected by the Palestinian people in a free and fair election.

what the hell are you implying anyhow? you never apply that ridiculous logic the other way around when people criticize your elected officials. (and i know why but thats not important) it's an intelectually shallow and irrelevant argument

elections, by definition, have consequences. all of them. sometimes good, other times not so good but an election is hardly a reason by itself to excuse what elected officials do once elected...and in this case everyone who participated in said election probably knew before they voted for Hamas what the consequences would be. that said, are you still going to sit here and apologize for them and for what Hamas does?

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Riiight. Am I not allowed to say when I don't know something? Never said there weren't any links...

the link really wasn't directed at you it was for everyone who read CHRles' last post. i just wanted to provide some back-up.

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As always, never hesitating to completely disregard the consequences of our own actions. It's always them right? It's always those mean terrorists who want to blow themselves up.

that is not applicable here. Hamas has been shunned, to their own satisfaction and long after their election you're so proud of, by the international community including many of her Arab government counterparts. they are still fighting a war the Arabs lost over 40 years ago and doing so in a way that violates all legitimate uses of force afforded to independent states by international law.

they can't "blow themselves up" anymore than they would like to becasue Israel has disengaged from the Gaza strip three years ago, so they continue to fire rockets on Israeli towns day after day despite many internationally brokered cease-fires.

what youre witnessing now is Hamas' moraly bankrupt policy of never giving in until the last Gazan, man woman or child, dies in the struggle...aided and abbetted by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

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Originally posted by Q5echo what the hell are you implying anyhow? you never apply that ridiculous logic the other way around when people criticize your elected officials. (and i know why but thats not important) it's an intelectually shallow and irrelevant argument

Apply what logic? That Hamas was elected to power? Bush was elected to power. Great. Whoop tee doo. I'm not calling him an illegitimate president. Whereas your camp won't even accept Hamas as representative of the Palestinian people, even when they are elected.

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elections, by definition, have consequences. all of them. sometimes good, other times not so good but an election is hardly a reason by itself to excuse what elected officials do once elected...and in this case everyone who participated in said election probably knew before they voted for Hamas what the consequences would be. that said, are you still going to sit here and apologize for them and for what Hamas does?

I'm not excusing terrorism. You seem to excuse terrorism only by them, but fail to see anything wrong with bulldozing farms and homes, and indiscriminately killing civilians. Both sides use terrorism, so for you to call out Hamas for doing less than the israelis do (because Israel kills far more Palestinians than Palestinians kill Israelis) is ludicrous. If your going to hark on Hamas terrorism, then do so with Israel too.

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that is not applicable here. Hamas has been shunned, to their own satisfaction and long after their election you're so proud of, by the international community including many of her Arab government counterparts. they are still fighting a war the Arabs lost over 40 years ago and doing so in a way that violates all legitimate uses of force afforded to independent states by international law.

Shunned? I believe most of the world is calling on Israel to obey international law and stop the blockade. If you want to call that shunning, do whatever makes you happy. By what sources are you coming here stating "many of her Arab government counterparts" are shunning Hamas? Using unnamed "official" sources again?

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they can't "blow themselves up" anymore than they would like to becasue Israel has disengaged from the Gaza strip three years ago, so they continue to fire rockets on Israeli towns day after day despite many internationally brokered cease-fires.

And why should they stop? They are blockaded into a collective prison. Which by the way, is in violation of international law. The occupation continues and so will Palestinian resistance.

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what youre witnessing now is Hamas' moraly bankrupt policy of never giving in until the last Gazan, man woman or child, dies in the struggle...aided and abbetted by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Why should they give in? The blockade has totally destroyed the Gaza Strip. And in the West Bank, Israeli settlers are continuing their "morally bankrupt" policy of apartheid.

How about this? Israel continues its morally bankrupt policy of occupation, settlements, and blockades until every Palestinian man, woman, and child is forced off their land to make way for Jewish settlers...aided and abbetted by the United States of America.

How does that sound?

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/200...ans-middle-east Gaza near to collapse as Israel tightens grip, says bank Israel's blockade of Gaza is pushing the territory to the brink of collapse and fuelling the growth of a black money market controlled by Hamas, the World Bank warned yesterday. As tit-for-tat attacks across the Gaza border began to intensify following the end of a six-month truce on Friday, the World Bank said that an acute cash shortage in Gaza was playing into Hamas's hands. The militant Islamists, who took control of Gaza in June 2007 following violent street clashes with their more secular rival, Fatah, have large stashes of shekels which they have been selling on the black market at a premium because of the cash shortage. There is also a worry that Hamas, with its dominant militant and bureaucratic control of Gaza, will begin to replace the shekel with US dollars, which are more easily obtained, to smuggle through the tunnels from Egypt in the south. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Quartet - the US, the EU, Russia and the United Nations - warned Israel of the crisis in a letter to the prime minister, Ehud Olmert, more than a week ago, to no avail. Instead, Israel continued to tighten its 18-month blockade of the tiny coastal territory, forcing banks and businesses to shut their doors, water, sanitation and electricity services to cease, medical clinics to turn away patients, and bread queues to form in the streets. Since the end of the truce, daily clashes have resumed, with Israel launching air strikes on Palestinian rocket-launching teams and Palestinian fighters firing makeshift rockets and mortars at neighbouring Israeli towns. Yesterday, Israel's air force attacked a rocket-launching site and Palestinians launched 18 Qassam rockets, one of which struck a house and another a factory, while a third exploded near farm labourers, injuring one. Most landed in open fields. In the afternoon gunmen also shot at workers near the perimeter. The two main rivals in Israel's February elections both vowed yesterday to remove Hamas from power, using military means if need be. "The state of Israel, and a government under me, will make it a strategic objective to topple the Hamas regime in Gaza," said Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister who will lead the ruling centrist party, Kadima, in the polls. "The means for doing this should be military, economic and diplomatic." Later, Binyamin Netanyahu, who leads the hard-right Likud party and who has been ahead in the polls for months, said: "In the long term, we will have to topple the Hamas regime. In the short term ... there are a wide range of possibilities, from doing nothing to doing everything, meaning to conquer Gaza." Israel has been unable to find a lasting military solution to years of rocket fire from Gaza, and a series of reports from the World Bank suggests its policy of blockading the coastal area to break Hamas's control has not only failed but is now jeopardising the US-backed Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Spot-on analysis from the Jerusalem Post

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Liar, liar, pants on cease-fire Dec. 21, 2008 Barry Rubin , THE JERUSALEM POST If you can understand why Hamas is ending its cease-fire with Israel, you can comprehend Middle East politics. And if you can't, you can't. From of a Western moderate pragmatist standpoint, Hamas's decision makes no sense for several reasons: Hamas cannot defeat Israel militarily. Thus, fighting won't improve Hamas's strategic situation or bring victory. Israeli counterattacks will cause both injuries and material damage in the Gaza Strip, inflicting big costs on Hamas's domain and subjects. Returning to warfare will ensure Hamas remains politically isolated and blocks international recognition or aid that would help its cause or end economic sanctions against the Gaza Strip. Going back to fighting makes certain that the Gaza Strip faces continued, even heightened, reductions in the material let in, thus ensuring more Palestinian suffering there. AND HAMAS is seemingly making three additional mistakes regarding timing. The first is that it is ending the cease-fire while George W. Bush is president. Certainly Israel feels freer to hit back at Hamas now than after Barack Obama is inaugurated simply because the new administration would want to avoid a crisis before it consolidates its plans and team. Also, the US is likely to prefer quiet as it begins withdrawing from Iraq. Second, the cease-fire is being suspended on the eve of a major Palestinian crisis as Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas announces a self-extension of his term in office. One might think Hamas would prefer to keep the Israel front quiet for a while to focus on battling Fatah and the PA. Finally, there's the Israeli election campaign. While this doesn't make large-scale retaliation inevitable, such a move would make the current government more popular with the electorate. Therefore, Hamas's behavior, an outside observer can easily conclude, seems stupid. But having built a mass movement, sizable army, seized the Gaza Strip and built broad support throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds, Hamas may be composed of genocide-oriented fanatics but not fools. What then explains this apparently silly behavior? HERE'S A case study of how Middle East politics really work: Hamas really believes its own propaganda, expecting victory despite the odds. Costs and casualties are irrelevant. The battle will go on until total victory even if that takes decades. This indicates Hamas will not moderate - the same applies to Hizbullah, Syria and Iran. At the same time, Hamas is not only indifferent to its own people's welfare, it actually seeking to inflict suffering on them as a political strategy. The worse off Palestinians are, Hamas believes, the more likely they will fight and die. This "the worse things are, the better they are" is the exact opposite of Western perspectives. But Hamas goes even further. It knows suffering can be blamed on Israel. Western pragmatists reason that obviously the Palestinians must prefer peace, prosperity and statehood. Rejectionism must then be due to desperation and the lack of a good offer or faith in the West. In fact, though, the situation is not due to our mistakes but to their deliberate choices. Thus, Hamas can well conclude that the best way to put pressure on Israel and - in its own mind at least - gain Western help is to be more radical, not more moderate. To cite one example, what is considered America's leading newspaper recently reported that both sides violate the cease-fire: Hamas fires rockets at Israel; Israel retaliates by closing the border. By this definition, the fact that Hamas and its allies fire rockets at civilians doesn't allow any Israeli response, military or otherwise. This is the kind of thinking Hamas seeks to promote. Then, too, setting off a crisis, Hamas expects, will draw peacekeepers like hardworking ants, giving press conferences in which they will insist that "something must be done to defuse the crisis." That "something" usually seems to be unilateral Israeli concessions. In short, the international community may rush in to save Hamas or the Palestinians in spite of themselves. At the same time, though, Hamas believes that its intransigence and aggressiveness will increase support in the Arab and Muslim worlds. As with Hizbullah, waging a war and portraying it as victory - even though the facts are otherwise - makes one a hero and attracts financing. This is also a judgment regarding Palestinian responses. More popular support can be garnered by producing martyrs than by producing higher living standards. Thus, Hamas will do better in its rivalry with the PA by fighting Israel than by fighting poverty. I am not saying this strategy will work completely, but it does succeed in part. If one believes the short run is irrelevant and the deity is on one's side, reality looks rather different. In addition, macho militancy in the Middle East does bring popularity, both domestic and international. The last quarter-century has also shown that Western sympathy can be manipulated by increasing violence and blocking solutions to the conflict in a way that will be blamed on Israel. Yet this world view is also illusory. Impoverishing one's people and destroying the infrastructure over which one rules makes such groups weaker rather than stronger, especially as Israel focuses on material gains. Western patience with the Palestinians has waned; Arab states are not so eager to help. A strategy depending on suicide bombers is also ultimately suicidal. Ironically, too, regarding the West, Islamists cannot get away with what radical Arab nationalists can. Too many Western intellectuals, journalists, leftists and even politicians might have been carried away with revolutionary romanticism for Fatah - seeing Yasser Arafat as merely an ugly version of Che Guevara. Far fewer see radical Islamists as heroic liberators. The bottom line is that Hamas will remain isolated and weaker than it could be if it kept things quiet, consolidated its hold on the Gaza Strip, built up its armies and base of support and had more patience. But Hamas will also survive, ideology undiluted, able to utter war cries about wiping Israel off the map and intoxicated with the belief it is following divine will. That's enough for Hamas's leadership and followers. The writer is director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center at IDC Herzliya.

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"Those are my principles, if you don't like them... well, I have others.”

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Originally posted by ******** Just thought I'd comment. It was Fatah that fired the rockets this time NOT HAMAS. Israel launched missle strikes - at Fatah, HAMAS fired Mortars.. get your story straight.

you mean Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades fired rockets and not Hamas? makes more sense seeing as how Fatah is a center/left POLITICAL ORGANIZATION and not a paramilitary one

the rockets you're no doubtedly refering to originated from Gaza. Fatah has a very limited presence in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas' military wing (an internationally recognized terrorist organization btw) is actually named after the rockets they fire and made famous.

do us a favor and before you think to "comment", how'bout you get life and other superfluous bullshit in one sock before running around telling others to "get it straight", ok Ashley?

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Originally posted by tathi its pretty disgusting but do you expect anything more humane from the israeli government?

Why doesn't EGYPT help? They're ALSO neighbors too, right? Oh wait, they fucking hate Gaza just as much I forgot.

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