Bogan said:

 Hiya guys, I am back home from hospital and back on my personal computer, so now I can go back to dissecting your failing logic sentence by sentence, or  paragraph by paragraph, like I usually do.  Instead of submitting generalised over views, which I was forced to do because of the limitations of my Iphone. 

Zues has stated that Hamas is a terorist group and belelieves Israel should defend itslelf. He has also highlighted things that Israel have done over the few years that are against international law as stated by legal human rights bodies. He also understands the principle of proportionality which is something I will never undestertand. 

I myself will never understand why Zues or no one else doesn't want to anilate all the arab countries in the middle east. For me it's not about Hamas. I want all innocent children and woman in these countries that have nothing to do with terrorism to be brutally mudered off the face of the planet. 

 

@Bogan said:
 Hiya guys, I am back home from hospital and back on my personal computer, so now I can go back to dissecting your failing logic sentence by sentence, or  paragraph by paragraph, like I usually do.  Instead of submitting generalised over views, which I was forced to do because of the limitations of my Iphone. 

Bogie, hope you are feeling better.  Sorry to hear you were in the hospital.

Swift early successes, however, gave way to brutal cold and a stiffening Red Army that fought on despite horrendous casualties. Hitler’s tanks reached to within 12 miles of the Soviet capital of Moscow. Officers could see the gleaming onion domes and spires of the city through their field glasses, but they could advance no farther. The winter of 1941 shut down offensive operations.

When the Nazis resumed their attacks in the spring of 1942, Hitler’s focus had changed. The immediate prize, he believed, was the oil fields of the Caucasus. German spearheads would drive south and secure this vital resource that could supply their war machine with the precious commodity indefinitely. At the same time, Hitler fatally weakened the offensive, instructing the Sixth Army, under General Friedrich von Paulus, to attack eastward and capture the industrial city of Stalingrad on the Volga River.

Was Stalingrad of any consequential military value? That is an open question. The truth, however, is that its capture appealed to Hitler’s vanity. The conquest of the city that bore his arch enemy’s name, that of Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, would be incredibly satisfying.

https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/hitlers-blunder-resulted-in-a-devastating-defeat-for-the-german-army-on-the-eastern-front/

ZeusAres42 said:

@Factfinder

The history of this whole region is rather interesting. Not many people know but I am guessing you are one of them that this whole region was once called Canaan? 

I recently just spent trying to go back as far as possible here

Factfinder quote  Yes I do know that from a biblical perspective more than a historical one. What joeseph claims about what Netanyahu is saying about the Amalekites could be true.

 Well, I would not know as I don’t even read his posts.    Although, I did skim one and thought that he was finally lifting his game.    So, he may yet be worth responding too in future,  

 Factfiner quote       No reason to doubt it as he would be appealing to his religious base the way right leaning governments do. I haven't really bothered checking it out though because to me it's irrelevant. If Israel was the bully joeseph claims their would be no Palestinian settlements today or for the last several decades. But yeah 2000 years ago in a fantasy book god calls for the destruction of the Amalekites.

 Joseph appears to equate HAMAS with the IRA, and the IDF with the British Army,  

 Factfiner quote  My concern is with what we can do today with modern solutions to fix the problems.

 Well, I would suggest we kill every HAMAS leader, and then kill every imam and mullah.     Then knock down every mosque, and send armies of Christian priests, Jewish rabbis, and Buddhist monks into Gaza to convert the locals from the Islamic death cult into more reasonable and peaceful religions, that can more or less get along with each other.  .

Factfinder quote  And one thing has to happen, we have to have no tolerance for any mindset that justifies the slaughter of innocents and breaking peace time circumstances for perceived grudges from generations ago.

 Good luck tipping your lance at those particular windmills.   It is a bit like saying that we should stop crime by telling criminals that they should not be naughty.     Believe it or not, that was once seriously proposed as the way to stop crime in the late 19th century. 

Factfinder quote  That is just terrorism for profit.

By George, I think that you have got it,

Factfinder quote  I believe we have the technology and the ability to dismantle the current status quo of terror and retaliation; then temporary armistices can be traded in for lasting peace. Then the nuanced differences can be addressed justly and civilly for a change. 

 That is not going to work because you are failing to appreciate that the primary reason for Islamic hatred of Israel is because their prophet hated them.     And just like with Hitler, the ayatollahs, mullahs, and imams really do believe that where an Islamic army has conquered, that is Islamic land forever,     Not a backward step can be taken.  

“The highest morality is the protection of one’s own people”-Plato.

 The Israeli officer is absolutely  right.    Faced with an enemy who makes no bones at all that he intends to exterminate your entire nation, and that his forces will commit atrocities on your civilian population “over and over again”, then nothing less than the total extermination of the armed forces of your implacable enemy makes any sense.   As for going into paroxysms of self righteous fury over the Jews calling their enemy an offensive name, such behaviour is human universal when one group of people utterly despise another group of people. they will always make up a nasty name to label their enemies with.  It is no different to US GI’s in 1944 calling the Germans “krauts.”   

 Depending upon the situation, executing every captured terrorist is just plain common sense.     Many captured Guantanamo Bay inmates who were released were later recaptured again on Iraqi and Afghan battlefields.    Captured terrorists can also be used as hostages.   When terrorists publicize the fact that they intend to cut the throat of some innocent westerner they have captured, informing the terrorists that you will execute five of their captured number in retaliation could save the life of the innocent that the terrorists intend to behead.       This worked a treat in the US civil war.  When the Confederacy announced that it intended to execute every African US POW it had captured, Abraham Lincoln announced that if the South did so, he would order the execution of a captured Confederate soldier in retaliation for every African soldier the Confederacy executed.      The Confederacy backed down.     You can not fight religious fanatic terrorists using the Queensbury rules.    You either get serious or you will lose.    In a guerilla war, if you are not winning, you are losing.

Factfinder quote   This is the issue people have with you when debating. The fact that the allies carpet bombed too is irrelevant when discussing the precedent of such actions was set by Germany. And they lost. Which supports my claim and you in your speech actually support in some ways, the tactic failed them. Had (as you point out) Hitler listened to his generals in my example he would not have split his offensive forces between the oil fields and Stalingrad. That was pure vanity on his part. 

 It is difficult to work out what point you are trying to make here?     My best guess, is that you seem to be saying that Nazi Germany used carpet bombing and it lost the war, therefore, Israel is going to lose it’s war in Gaza because it carpet bombs?   If that is what you mean, then I think that you are drawing a very long bow there, mate.     And your premise is invalid anyway because Israel does not “carpet bomb”, or even “dive bomb”, it uses precision munitions.

Factfinder quote  I never looked for reasons for Israel not to defend herself.

 First you claim that Israel should defend itself, then you take exception to the methods it must use to do just that?

Factfinder quote  If you don't understand ask, don't misrepresent.

Okay, please explain what on earth your initial statement above even means?     I get sick and tired of debating against opponents who make rambling sentences full of implications which makes me do all the work trying to figure out what they mean.    Only to have them shoot back that I am misrepresenting them. 

Factfinder quote      If you'll recall it is I that said, "Israel is doing what it needs to survive and nobody offers a better, realistic alternative." on my first response in this thread. 

 But this entire topic is just an Israeli bashing topic, where people like yourself criticise Israel and say nothing about HAMAS.     So, you may make a statement saying that Israel has a right to defend itself, but then you go all self righteous and criticise Israel when they do just that.     So, you can hardly blame me if I consider that you are hostile to Israel.     And if you are hostile to Israel, then you have got a problem with me.    Because I defend Israel, because I admire the Israelis I and despise their enemies. 

Factfinder quote    Whether you want to call it carpet bombing or terror bombing, the results are the same as you again point out.

Okay.    But you accused Israel of carpet bombing, which the Israelis just do not do.     And when you make a false accusation against Israel, then once again, you can hardly blame me for thinking that despite your claim to not be anti Israel, you are in fact very anti Israel.  

 Factfinder quote   Strategically going after a factory that has civilian infrastructure next to it on all sides during WW2 with massive bombing and Israel today using more precise methods to target strategic objectives surrounded by civilian infrastructure, or that lay beneath it, causes the same humanitarian crisis that ripple across the landscape.

Then blame that on HAMAS, not Israel.     HAMAS put Israel in a position where they had to do it so that HAMAS can not carry out it’s threat to shoot hundreds of Israeli men, women, children, and babies, and rape every female they can get their filthy hands on, “again and again.”  

 I know you are going to claim that I am misrepresenting you again, but from the responses that you have written, you seem to be coming from a peculiar position?     You seem to think that killing women and children is bad, so if Israel kills women and children, then that is bad.    Therefore, Israel must stop fighting because Palestinian women and children are getting killed?       The problem with moral absolutes is that they can not deal with moral priorities and moral quandaries.       Using exactly the same absolutist logic, the allies should have stopped the war with Germany in 1944, and let Hitler and the Nazi Party recover to do it all again another day, because too many German women and children were getting killed in the Allied invasion of Germany.    But the allies in 1944 did not agree with your noble moral absolute and stop fighting, and Israel is not going to do it either. 

Factfinder quote   One exception that you point out showing Hamas accidently hit their own hospital doesn't negate the fact Israeli strikes have hit multiple medical facilities and other civilian structures throughout this war.

 How do you know?    HAMAS claimed that the hospital deliberately targeted by the Israelis, even though they already knew that it was their own rocket that did the damage.    So, anything that the lying sods say should be treated with suspicion and deep mistrust.    And when you are dealing with people who have no regard for the civilised rules of war, and who even use hospitals for arms dumps and rocket launching pads, then you can hardly blame Israel if it shoots back wherever the sods choose to kill Israelis from. 

Factfinder quote    We must admit that what we as civilized people have allowed as the status quo in this region can't sustain itself indefinitely...

 Once again, an ambiguous statement which can mean anything.    I think I know what you mean, but if I get it wrong, then you will just say again that I am misrepresenting you. 

Factfinder quote  That's why it's illegal.

It is also “illegal” for any combatant to use a hospital to store arms and launch missiles.      You seem to have a problem understanding how agreements go?      If you make an agreement, then both sides have to abide by it.     If one side breaks the agreement, the other side is not under any obligation to keep its side of the bargain.

Factfinder quote Which is why I say the cycle has to stop and to do that Hamas and its ilk must be dismantled.

 It is not going to stop because HAMAS is committed to the idea of wiping Israel off the map.     What you just wrote was wishful thinking.    You are down in the garden dancing with the fairies if you are thinking like that.

Factfinder quote  That would take a lot of work but they're the aggressors and Israel has no desire to send missiles into the countries that surround her. In my opinion, Hamas goes, then positive things can begin to happen from both perspectives that can lead to lasting solutions.

 HAMAS is not going any where unless the IDF sends the whole lot of them to hell.

Factfinder quote  Personally, as I already alluded to before, the world has the technology and the tools to weed them out if we cooperated with that specified, unified goal.

The “specified, unified goal” of most of the international community is to always blame Israel for shooting back.      And your own thinking is not too removed from that.    You are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. 

Factfinder quote   I am neither. You are neither. We are just discussing it on the internet. Though I see no reason to continue.

Of course not.    You thought that this was an easy topic with a black and white morality where you could just strut and preen your moral virtue.       Then I come along and display to you that your thinking is naïve and simplistic.   

Factfinder quote  If you insist on breaking down what someone says sentence by sentence as if they're stand alone remarks thereby warping their meanings instead of considering the intended context of said sentences, you will never understand what people are saying.

I can’t win.     If I take an overview, I am supposedly misquoting you.    And if I break your reply down to what sure looks to me like stand alone premises, you don’t like that either.

Factfinder quote      There comes a time when one must move past assigning blame and seek solutions.

Yeah?    How do you compromise with this mindset?........

 Hamas's Charter

Palestine is an Islamic Waqf throughout all generations and to the Day or Resurrection…

…When our enemies usurp some Islamic lands, Jihad becomes a duty binding on all Muslims. In order to face the usurpation of Palestine by the Jews, we have no escape from raising the banner of Jihad. This would require the propagation of Islamic consciousness among the masses on all local, Arab and Islamic levels. We must spread the spirit of Jihad among the [Islamic] Umma, clash with the enemies and join the ranks of the Jihad fighters.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Then there is this…..

“It will be a war of annihilation. It will be a momentous massacre in history that will be talked about like the massacres of the Mongols or the crusades." Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the Arab League. October 11, 1947.

"This is not a country of humans. These are animals and a group of gangs, this country must be wiped off the face of the earth." Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghazi Hamad.

'Allah wiling, the moment will come when their property will be destroyed and their sons annihilated, until not a single Jew is left on the face of the earth. HAMAS sermon at the Al Aqsa TV April 3, 2009.

"HAMAS would definitely not be prepared to co exist with Israel even if the Zionists returned to their pre 1969 borders." HAMAS leader Mahmoud al-Zahar.

"We will never recognise Israel or cease to fight for our land." Khalid Marshaal, HAMAS Political Chief.

"Israel's days are numbered. The people of the region would not miss the narrowest opportunity to annihilate this criminal regime." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad President of Iran.

“Israel is much smaller than Iran and therefore much more vulnerable to nuclear attack." Former Iranian President Ali Rafsanjani."

Your problem, Factfinder, is that you are a young humanitarian liberal who is convinced that everybody thinks the same way that you do.    It just does not enter your head that Muslims really do want to exterminate Israel and all of the people in it, because they see it as a religious duty that will buy them their ticket to heaven.     You can’t think that way, but they sure do.      And there is no compromise with that sort of thinking.  

Factfinder quote   I have always maintained Israel's right to defend itself.

Provided that they do so in a way that you approve, except you can’t think how that can happen.     But whatever it is, the Israelis must find it and do it.

Factfinder quote  Just because I also think it's not a good thing to bomb civilian hospitals is in no way changing my stance and you've failed to show that it has.

Gee, who is putting words in people’s mouths now?    If HAMAS says that the IDF is bombing hospitals I reflexively think the opposite.      The Gaza front probably has more journalists there than IDF soldiers, and a lot of them are anti Israel.    So, if the IDF had bombed a hospital, it would be fair to say that the left leaning press would have been all over that like a rash.

Factfinder quote   Everyone has their opinions on who's fault it is and I've shown ample outrage towards Hamas and the like for being the aggressors.

But those aggressors that you condemn have got you working for them to try and stop Israel from wiping out the last of them.

Factfinder quote   I realize others believe differently; but if we're to find any solutions we need to move past the blame game.

The only solution is to convert every Islamic country into either Christianity, Buddhism, or Zionism.     Because the problem is their religion.   Got that?    Islam is the problem.     It is a male dominated warriors religion which justifies religious expansion through armed force.   As a vehicle for imperial expansion, it has much to recommend it.     But if you think that Muslims just want peace and they are willing to compromise to get it, then you are down in the garden dancing with the fairies.

Factfinder quote   Bombing people into oblivion as an answer was something we as civilized people at one time wanted to move past.

There you go.    You are thinking like a young liberal who has a full belly, and who lives a comfortable life in a safe and prosperous country, and you think that Muslims think just like you do?    We civilised people do not want war at all, and we just wish that every despot on planet earth would just stay in their own countries and stop causing trouble everywhere in the world.         But just as Lenin said “you may not be interested in war, but war just might be interested in you.”

Factfinder quote     You thought you could read minds and you can't. Ever hear of debating the topic, not the person? 

 Yes I have heard of “debating the subject, not the person.”   And so do not just endlessly abuse my opponents like some low IQ contributors on this site.   But when confronted by opponent who’s opinions are nothing short of delusional, then the only way that you can get them to start figuring out how wrong they are, is to get to the bottom of the way they think.    

 Factfinder quote    LOL This from one who displays the most extremely primitive forms of 'us verse them' mentality imaginable. 

 When it comes to Islam, then you had better start realising that I am right.    For decades, people like myself have been trying to warn naïve little humanitarians like your good self that importing Muslims into western society would not only result in endless trouble, we could end up in an Israel like situation ourselves where Muslims basically create their own hostile parallel societies.    These societies would amount to separate states within European countries, where terrorism will become so endemic that sooner or later, the Euros themselves will need to do a Gaza.      In Sydney, Australia, the crime filled Muslim suburbs of Sydney have been nicknamed by the police as “the Gaza Strip.”     When a NSW state Premier visited Sydney’s largest mosque at Lakemba, the head off Sunni Muslims in Australia, Sheik al Hilali, greeted the Premier by saying “Welcome to the Islamic Republic of Lakemba.”    It wasn’t a joke.   He meant it. 

Factfinder quote After countless attempts to explain and simplify my stance to @Bogan, he still thinks my argument is that Israel should stop retaliating in case they harm innocent civilians. That has never been my argument, as you also know.

 Then the way to prevent any misunderstandings is for you to declare, “My position is this, blah, blah, blah.”     Because if you don’t, then all I have to go on is what you write over time.       And so far, all of your writing so far has been to attack Israel, even to the point of slandering them by accusing them of “carpet bombing” Gaza.    The only times that you have ever kicked HAMAS, is when I have pointed out your double standard.    You would then give HAMAS a kick just to show me how “unbiased” you are.

 Factfinder quote  I also didn't bother engaging much with him regarding the Second World War because, as you are aware, there were a lot of atrocities that happened here that actually preceded things like the Geneva Convention, ICJ, etc. That was kind of a historian fallacy and irrelevant. I do have my opinions here about this war too, but that has nothing to do with this modern-day conflict in the Middle East.

 The reason why you had better not try to engage with me over the second world war, is because it is a subject which I have studied intensely and I know what I am talking about.     Using WW2 as an historical example, equates precisely with the moral situation that Israel faces today.    In 1945, regardless of the fact that thousands of German civilians were dying under Allied bombing and military actions every day, the Allies were not going to stop until they attained Germany’s unconditional surrender.     Nothing less than the complete destruction of the Nazi regime was acceptable.    Israel is in exactly the same moral situation today as the allies were in 1945, And if you can’t see it, then not only is your knowledge of history appalling, it is necessary to point out to you the moral equivalence so that you can start thinking straight.

Factfinder quote   Furthermore, if I remember correctly, he said something about Hamas using children. As for that, this is an ethical dilemma. Unfortunately, regarding this aspect, it's "us or them!" I am not disputing that.

 Boing? Boing?     You said above that I am “one who displays the most extremely primitive forms of 'us verse them' mentality imaginable” and then you announce that, “it's "us or them! I am not disputing that.”       Please ensure that brain is in gear before engaging keyboard.

Factfinder quote      And the blood will be on the hands of Hamas; not the Israelis. I don't know if you ever watched the movie about Alan Turing, where there was a scene where he cracked the Enigma code that would have let them save a ship filled with lots of civilians. This presented another ethical dilemma. If they alerted the people on the ship, the Germans would have known that the Enigma code had been cracked. This was a necessary evil that helped win the Second World War.

 I thought that the scene was a perfect example of how morality is rarely black and white?     Moral priorities and moral quandaries almost always exist in real life.     So, just hammering Israel because Israel needs to kill or main Gazan civilians if it is to exterminate HAMAS equates exactly with the moral dilemma which faced the allies in WW2.    Although at the time, the allies never even thought of it that way.   They held the German people responsible for their own misfortune.     But today, we live in a world where some people can only see “oppressors and the oppressed.”    And winners are always the bad guys, and losers always the good guys.      So, if Israel is winning, then they must be the bad guys.   And this from a university educated caste who claim they are intelligent?.   

Factfinder quote      Now, back to the modern day. My comments were also regarding the criticism that Israel has faced in terms of violating international law, such as killing civilians in surrounding areas that have nothing to do with Hamas.

 Here we go again.     Israel is the bad guy which you constantly imply, but when challenged, deny.   You only have to look at what happened in WW2 to see how silly your thinking is.     Because in WW2, how the allied front line soldiers treated their enemies depended a lot on how their enemies treated them.     You could have a “gentleman’s war” like in North Africa with Rommel, or you could have total war as you had in the Pacific, where both sides routinely engaged in war crimes.     The Geneva Convention was an agreement written by civilised countries who wanted a formal agreement between all civilised countries as to what the rules should be when they started slaughtering each other.     The whole thing fell to pieces when the Allies realised that Japan in particular was not a civilised country at all, and it had a military code of Bushido, which meant that as far as Japan was concerned, in war there were no holds barred.

Factfinder quote  I don't think he gets the principle of proportionality.

 Hahahahaha!     No I don’t!     Please explain how that works?    Does it mean that if HAMAS slaughters 1300 largely unarmed Israeli civilians and rapes 300 Israeli women and children, that Israel is only allowed to slaughter 1300 largely unarmed Gazan civilians and rape 300 Gazan women and children in return?

Factfinder quote  When engaging in any military operation (and I am assuming you are aware of this, having served), it is of utmost importance that efforts are taken to minimize collateral damage as much as possible.

 Which is impossible to do when fighting an uncivilized enemy like HAMAS, which not only has no regard for concepts such as the Geneva Convention, it has no regard for even the lives of it’s own civilians.

Factfinder quote     Now, with bodies like IHL and others, it seems like Israel's actions have been somewhat reckless, having no regard for civilians in surrounding areas.

 There you go again.   Israel is the bad guy, not HAMAS.    Always imply, but when challenged, deny.     My opinion is, that Israel has a lot more “regard” for the lives of the people in Gaza than HAMAS has.     HAMAS are the bad guys, Factfinder, not Israel.     

Factfinder quote    According to them, the amount of civilian casualties and deaths appear disproportionate to the amount of effort that should have been taken to avoid this much collateral.

 According to that logic, the allies in WW2 were the bad guys, not the Nazis or Imperial Japan.

Bogan said:

At least the Israelis don’t go around shooting women, kids and babies,

Bogan said:

I was hoping to have a serious discussion with you, Mr Phite, and maybe get you to start thinking straight.?       

Joeseph said:

My own country proposed a solution 43 years ago .......Ireland: leading Europe in supporting peace

Ireland was the first European Union Member State to declare that a solution to the conflict in the Middle East had to be based on a fully sovereign Palestinian State, independent of and co-existing with Israel. This statement was made in a joint declaration by the Foreign Ministers of Ireland and Bahrain in 1980.

Since then, every Irish Government has given a high priority to the achievement of a two-state solution, which is now the accepted goal of all international efforts. The Middle East Peace Process remains a key foreign policy priority for the Government. Along with our EU partners, Ireland supports efforts to restart comprehensive negotiations for an overall peace agreement.

Ireland has not refused to designate Hamas as a terrorist organization. Contrary to some claims, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs clarified that it is "categorically false" that Ireland refused to acknowledge Hamas as a terrorist group in the EU's statement on the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Indeed, Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union, a stance unanimously agreed upon by all member states, including Ireland​ (TheJournal.ie)​.