Israeli air strike kills Hamas military chief Jabari

[weemadando]

They deserve credit for not committing genocide?

Try living through ten rocket alarms per day, and you'll find that surprisingly difficult VERY soon.

Try having your home destroyed because there was a strike on the alley next door which was used to launch a rocket, and you'll find that surprisingly difficult VERY soon.

Both sides suck at not aggravating the issue.

[fgalkin]

They deserve credit for not committing genocide?

Try living through ten rocket alarms per day, and you'll find that surprisingly difficult VERY soon.

Try having your home destroyed because there was a strike on the alley next door which was used to launch a rocket, and you'll find that surprisingly difficult VERY soon.

Both sides suck at not aggravating the issue.

Solution: don't let people launch rockets from your alley.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Omeganian]

Mobilization of 16 000 Israeli reservists has been approved. Sounds like someone's patience is at an end.

[Stark]

Solution: don't let people launch rockets from your alley.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Is the best way to protect your family from Israeli attacks to get them killed by terrorists?

[weemadando]

Solution: don't let people launch rockets from your alley.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Oh yes, because I'm sure those heavily armed militants will just up and leave when asked to. If you don't get beaten or killed immediately, at least you've preserved your anonymity and thus your own and your family's safety - after all, they'll never figure out who you are or where you live when you lean out your bedroom window and shout: "GODDAMN HAMAS! GET OFF MY LAWN!"

Or maybe you could call the police who totally haven't been crippled by infighting between militant factions trying to control it or crippled by Israeli or Egyptian military and intelligence actions.

Or maybe you can just call up Israel and go: "BTW, there's some dudes about to fire a rocket from behind 45 Gaza Strip Lane, please don't counter-battery us." I'm sure that will go over brilliantly at the next body corporate meeting when you tell all the other tenants of your block about how you saved them from being shelled.

Maybe if you are particularly influential, respected, connected or just get lucky, you might actually succeed in in getting them to not fire - after all, there have been cases of this. But really, for the average/majority of residents is it even close to being an option?

[Block]

Solution: don't let people launch rockets from your alley.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Oh yes, because I'm sure those heavily armed militants will just up and leave when asked to. If you don't get beaten or killed immediately, at least you've preserved your anonymity and thus your own and your family's safety - after all, they'll never figure out who you are or where you live when you lean out your bedroom window and shout: "GODDAMN HAMAS! GET OFF MY LAWN!"

Or maybe you could call the police who totally haven't been crippled by infighting between militant factions trying to control it or crippled by Israeli or Egyptian military and intelligence actions.

Or maybe you can just call up Israel and go: "BTW, there's some dudes about to fire a rocket from behind 45 Gaza Strip Lane, please don't counter-battery us." I'm sure that will go over brilliantly at the next body corporate meeting when you tell all the other tenants of your block about how you saved them from being shelled.

Maybe if you are particularly influential, respected, connected or just get lucky, you might actually succeed in in getting them to not fire - after all, there have been cases of this. But really, for the average/majority of residents is it even close to being an option?

Or maybe you not elect Hamas to be your government and instead work with Fatah, who seems to be doing a much better job of working with the Israelis in a peaceful manner, to eliminate the violent thugs? It's not like they didn't make a choice to have Hamas as the power in Gaza.

[weemadando]

Why do the Israelis elect hardliners with policies of expanded lebensraum and total opposition to a two state solution?

Don't they want their neighbours to stop shooting at them?

[Omeganian]

Why do the Israelis elect hardliners with policies of expanded lebensraum and total opposition to a two state solution?

Don't they want their neighbours to stop shooting at them?

For starters, there is little evidence two states will actually solve anything...

[Block]

Why do the Israelis elect hardliners with policies of expanded lebensraum and total opposition to a two state solution?

Don't they want their neighbours to stop shooting at them?

Because the last two times they elected moderate governments there was an Intifada?

[Dark Hellion]

Jesus fucking christ why do we always have to have this goddamn stupidity? Both sides are a bunch of petulant little assholes who hold the tiniest little thing against each other and until some stronger side (aka the US because no one else actually has any capacity) steps in and bitchslaps both of them for being stupid little children nothing will be accomplished. Now can we move on to something that doesn't involve a bunch of outsiders bitching because their precious little notions of how the world is supposed to work is being torn apart by how absolutely petty humanity can be?

[Grumman]

...the tiniest little thing...

I think the phrase you're looking for is "acts of war". Firing artillery at a nation's capital is rather a serious thing, even if you suck at it.

[DarkArk]

Because the last two times they elected moderate governments there was an Intifada?

To expand, it's because the moderate solutions didn't work. One of the ironies is that Israel gave the Gazans pretty much everything that people ask for in 2006: removal of settlements (forced by the IDF no less), pulling back to the border, letting the Palestinians have their own elections and government, etc. What happened was the organization that claimed a large number of suicide bombings during the Second Intifada came to power, murdered its moderate opposition, and then proceeded to launch rockets at Israel.

From the Israeli perspective it was an utter and complete failure, doing little more than giving one of their chief enemies a base to use and some legitimacy. Thus the solutions that everyone else seems to think should work, have in reality proven would be a complete disaster to follow with the West Bank. Hence, it is highly unlikely that the Israelis will try again.

Both sides are a bunch of petulant little assholes who hold the tiniest little thing against each other

Having people blow themselves up in your buses and cafes, or having airstrikes come down on your head is no tiny thing. I'd say I'm pretty firmly in the Israeli camp on most things, but the Palestinians grievances are not petty in the slightest.

Also: footage of Iron Dome shooting down rockets.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=76a_1353020264

[Dark Hellion]

Seriously, why the fuck does this topic make otherwise intelligent people fucking retarded. Big things are included in the group that includes up to the tiniest little thing. Its not a fucking exclusive statement. Both sides fire all kinds of giant fucking explosives at each other. And both sides remember every fucking time the other fired or blew up or detonated or scooby-fucking-dooed explosives at each other. Seriously folks, just accept that people can be absolute shitters to each other and try to fix that instead of bloviating about who killed who like a bad Monty Python sketch.

[Keevan_Colton]

...the tiniest little thing...

I think the phrase you're looking for is "acts of war". Firing artillery at a nation's capital is rather a serious thing, even if you suck at it.

Interesting use of the term, since a war would require a nation...of course thanks to all the fucking about there, there cant be a war because that would require two nations. What you've technically got is explosive vandalism and a very shitty police response...

[The Grim Squeaker]

Aaaand rockets on Jerusalem. Fun times.

Israeli article: http://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/1.1866343
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-d ... a-1.478193

[Zadius]

They deserve credit for not committing genocide?

Try living through ten rocket alarms per day, and you'll find that surprisingly difficult VERY soon.

I remember after 9/11, a lot of normally level-headed Americans were saying "nuke the whole Middle East" and other such crazy things. Events like that turn people irrational fast, I understand that. If I was an Israeli right now, I'd quite possibly be cheerleading the Israeli soldiers carrying their big guns. If I was a Palestinian right now, I'd quite possibly be carrying a big gun myself. That's a product of the disparity both in the magnitude of wrongdoing and in the trust/hope people have in the people who can defend them. Both sides are committing atrocities, but I don't accept for a minute that they are suffering equally. That does not mean anybody deserves credit for their "restraint" when they don't kill innocent people.

[JME2]

Aaaand rockets on Jerusalem. Fun times.

You know, this is one of those times when I just shake my head at the irony of Jerusalem meaning "City of Peace" in Hebrew.

[Justforfun000]

JME2 Wrote:

You know, this is one of those times when I just shake my head at the irony of Jerusalem meaning "City of Peace" in Hebrew.

I think it's a misspelling. Everyone wants a piece of the city.

[JME2]

I think it's a misspelling. Everyone wants a piece of the city.

Heh.

I still think Robin Williams conceived the perfect solution to the Jerusalem quagmire back in 2002:

"I have a plan, it's an interesting plan. It's called a timeshare, like Miami, let's try that. Jews will get Hanukah and Passover, Christians will get Christmas and Easter, and Muslims will get Ramadan and that other holiday, Kaboom."

[SirNitram]

When do we just wall both sides off and cut them from the outside world? I don't think anything less will do any good. Certainly not outside forces funding the two sides.

[Justforfun000]

When do we just wall both sides off and cut them from the outside world? I don't think anything less will do any good. Certainly not outside forces funding the two sides.

This! ^^

I think you have the only true solution at this stage of the game. They are both too provincial minded and refuse to compromise and people shouldn't have to suffer as civilians for this kind of dogmatic obstinacy. The biggest issue of course is they insist on occupying and holding claim to certain specific locales...Jerusalem in particular. Neither side seems to be close to budging on that issue in a serious effort to compromise.

[weemadando]

Similar to Nitram's option is the "toss a coin and the winner gets to march the other side into the sea and claim it all".

Both sides have alienated the other too well to ever hope for anything but a lifetime of misery inflicted in the name of progress.

[Dartzap]

I may have misheard the radio entirely in my half woken state, but apparently Israel is calling up 75,000 reservists to standby. Which either means they plan on having one man on every meter of the border, or they plan on invading and occupying Afghanistan for a decade.

Ah, found it here Beeb

srael has targeted the headquarters of Hamas leaders and other key facilities in Gaza, on the fourth day of Israeli air strikes in the coastal enclave.
Prime Minister Ismail Haniya's office, which Egypt's PM had visited on Friday, was among the buildings destroyed.
At least 38 Palestinians and three Israelis have died since Israel killed Hamas's military chief on Wednesday.
Israel earlier put 75,000 reservists on stand-by amid speculation of an impending ground invasion.

Militants in Gaza have continued to fire rockets into Israel, after aiming at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on Friday.
Following a lull, Gaza City was hit by a string of large explosions shortly after 03:00 (01:00 GMT) on Saturday.
There was another series of strikes in and around the city after 05:00, with several targeting Hamas's cabinet buildings, which correspondents say were likely to have been empty.
One of the targets was the house of a Hamas leader in Jabaliya, north of Gaza City.

The BBC's Paul Danahar tweeted from the scene: "A mother in her wrecked home... is scurrying around collecting her daughters dolls, dusting them off."
Our correspondent said Mr Haniya's HQ was the most damaged of any building he had seen. Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Qandil had visited it on Friday morning.

At least eight Palestinians are reported to have been killed in overnight strikes. The dead are said to include three members of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing.
Israel issued a statement saying it was targeting rocket-launching squads and weapons storage facilities and smuggling tunnels on the border with Egypt in southern Gaza.
Israeli military spokeswoman Avital Leibovich said 200 targets had been hit overnight, including 120 rocket launchers.
There are rumours that a ground attack is imminent, but Israeli officials say no decision has been made.

Israel blocked access to three major routes leading into Gaza on Friday. Call-up papers have already been sent to 16,000 Israeli reservists, with officials authorising the mobilisation of another 75,000.

Militants and civilians, including at least seven children, have been among the Palestinians killed during Israeli strikes in recent days, Hamas says.
The group's military leader Ahmed Jabari was killed on Wednesday. A senior commander was killed on Friday, officials said.
Two Israeli women and a man died when a rocket hit a building in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi on Thursday.
'Iron Dome'

Before the recent offensive - codenamed Pillar of Defence - Israel had repeatedly carried out air strikes on Gaza, as Palestinian militants fired rockets across the border.
Hundreds more rockets have been fired into Israel from Gaza since Wednesday. Most were of the targets were in the south, but some longer-range weapons have been aimed at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

A quarter of the attacks have been intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome missile defence system, officials say.
Dozens of rockets were fired from Gaza on Saturday morning. The army said three of its soldiers were injured in one strike in southern Israel.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has accused Israel of carrying out "massacres".

Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdessalem arrived in Gaza through the Rafah border crossing from Egypt to show support for Hamas. Later on Saturday he visited the wreckage of Mr Haniya's HQ.
Western leaders and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon have appealed for both sides to stop the violence.

In a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, President Barack Obama reiterated US support for Israel's "right to defend itself".
Mr Obama also spoke to Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi. Mr Mursi has called the Israeli raids "a blatant aggression against humanity" and promised that Egypt "will not leave Gaza on its own".
Ties between Hamas and Egypt have strengthened since Mr Mursi's election earlier this year.

Hamas was formed as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, to which Mr Mursi belongs.

I really hope I;m wrong, but this feels like a gigantic tinderbox in a region already half on fire.

[D.Turtle]

I know its fun to poke both sides (or one side) as to how unwilling they are to have peace, but its not really adding anything of worth, and just risks getting this thread closed.

Feel free to discuss the news though (like the possible imminent ground operation into the Gaza strip).

[Ace Pace]

Well, in totally not surprising news, none of the terrorist organizations down in Gaza are stupid. They've carefully studied how Iron Dome functions and they keep trying new things to put rockets past the system. Their latest trick (or so I guess) is attempting to overload the system along a specific axis. Such as firing at Ashdod and Tel Aviv at the same time (done now twice in a row), hoping to complicate the firing solution.

How well this works? Well, today they tried again and successful intercept. Rumour mill says over Holon (a suburb roughly 15km south of TA).

I'm kinda having some morbid fun calmly walking to shelters. So far none of the attacks have caught me at home.