Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread

[halfwise]

Before you take this too far, I don't think you can say Hamas is incapable of using ambulances as a form of covert transport.  Though if so it was buried among other legitimate ambulances, and Israel has shown it's quite capable of putting the goal of destroying Hamas above the rules of war.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ I dont think if Hamas is using ambulances sometimes among civilian ones or not is the issue - there is no moral grounds, or legal ones for saying 'one of those ambulances might be Hamas so we kill all of them' just as there is no moral or legal right to bomb entire residential blocks to get 1 Hamas Commander, but they did that too. Or to bomb hospitals or refugee camps just because Hamas might be there too.
You cannot argue, 'we dont target civilians' if you are also saying, 'it just so happens where we are bombing is also where all the civilians are'.

If the UK had dealt with the IRA the same way Israel is Hamas, we would have built a big wall round the catholic council estates where we know IRA members lived and operated from, claimed they were using the civilians as human shields and told them to move from the area as we are going to bomb it to rubble, then not put any exits in the wall so they couldn't get out, then bombed them anyway. And justified it as 'well there are terrorists there too'.

We didn't do that because it's immoral, cruel, unfair, illegal in International Law and is an obvious overreaction even to atrocities like the Omagh Bombing, or the many kidnappings, torture and murders the IRA conducted over decades (and their antecedents back to the 1800's). And if we had taken this route Northern Ireland would not now be more than a generation who have grown up never knowing the Troubles.

What Israel is doing is not any sort of solution, it's just perpetuating the violence for generations to come. Does anyone think the Palestinian children who survive this, who saw their families blown apart, burnt to death, crushed under their own homes, or just starved or died from lack of medical attention, are going to grow up with anything less than an utter hatred for Israel and Jews? }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Jordans Foreign Minister sums it up well- }}

"I think we need to remind each other of our humanity. I think we need to accept that killing more people will not bring [back] those who are lost on both sides, as tragic as the loss is. I think we need to all emphasise that everything we can do to save one more life is imperative upon all of us.
As human beings, we just cannot accept to see all that killing unfolding, to see all that reduction of life.
How can we justify to anybody that killing 9,000 people, killing 3,700 children, destroying 150,000 houses, destroying hospitals - how can we justify that this is self-defence?
This war is going to push us all again into the abyss of hatred and dehumanisation that will make killing even more acceptable. That needs to stop."

[halfwise]

{{ I dont think if Hamas is using ambulances sometimes among civilian ones or not is the issue - there is no moral grounds, or legal ones for saying 'one of those ambulances might be Hamas so we kill all of them' just as there is no moral or legal right to bomb entire residential blocks to get 1 Hamas Commander, but they did that too. Or to bomb hospitals or refugee camps just because Hamas might be there too.
You cannot argue, 'we dont target civilians' if you are also saying, 'it just so happens where we are bombing is also where all the civilians are'.}}

What I'm saying is that Israel is not targetting ambulances and Hospitals, it's acting on intelligence that those particular ones are Hamas targets.  That doesn't make it forgivable, but it does lower it from the much greater crime of targetting all ambulances just because some might be carrying Hamas.  For all the crimes you may lay at the feet of Israel, that would not be one of them. They may be ruthless in pursuit of an objective, but not indiscriminate.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ They said they had intelligence 'an ambulance' was being used, yet they bombed a convoy of ambulances trying to get wounded south to the border, then bombed it again when it got back to the hospital and was trying to offload the injured. Bombing a convoy in the hope of hitting the one you want, that is indiscriminate.
Bombing a refugee camp because your intelligence says Hamas operate from under it is indiscriminate killing.
If civilians are between you and the target you simply have to find another way, murdering all the civilians to get to them is to indiscriminately murder. It's also a war crime.

I also simply don't buy the argument 'we don't target civilians, it's just coincidental everywhere we want to strike happens to be on civilians, and we blow them up, but we aren't trying to kill them we just are killing them.' If you knowingly drop bombs on civilian areas, even those intelligence says the enemy is operating from, you are also knowingly blowing up the civilians. You are targeting civilians, even if only because they are 'in the way'. The difference is Israel simply doesn't care about the Palestinian lives its slaughtering, as far as they are concerned bombing a hundred Palestinian civilians to shut down one Hamas operation centre is worth it.
At best Israel is conducting a mass culling of Palestinian numbers and a forced mass relocation of people to the Sinai under duress and military force, driving them from their homes. All henious war crimes. And at worse it's attempted genocide.}}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ So its come to this, Israel just murdered two babies on incubators in the main Gaza hospital, the babies life support ran out of power, they are fighting to keep the 30 odd others alive, but it's not looking good. At what stage do we stop pretending this is a security operation and start recognising the long list now of heinous war crimes being committed by Israel? Whatever happens now, Netanyahu should be in prison for the rest of his life, as should many of his government and many members of the IDf who have been shooting, bombing an dindiscrimtaly murdering civillians.

If Putin had done any one of the crimes committed by Israel, forced millions off their land under threat of military violence, targeted civilian housing, safe zones and even refugee camps, cut of vital supplies of food, water and power, NATO would openly be at war with Russia by now. And US politicians, defending, funding and assisting Israel's genocide would be shouting their condemnation of Putin from the rooftops. Its an utter disgrace, the West are accomplices to this brutality. Our tax money, and especially US tax money, is paying to slaughter Palestinian children and women, and it has to end.}}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Israel say they will evacuate the remaining babies from the hospital, well they say that but in reality there is no safe way out the hospital with fighting going on in the streets immediately surrounding it, not helped by Israeli shelling the actual hospital though they deny it- A surgeon at the hospital in Gaza City told the BBC the hospital had run out of water, food and electricity - and that the intensive care unit had been struck."
On top of that moving premature babies from one hospital to another is tricky enough under normal circumstances, these are near impossible circumstances and the 'head of surgery warning that other hospitals in the territory don't have the expertise or facilities to look after the reported 37 babies who were being cared for at Shifa’s neonatal unit before it lost electricity.'- BBC

The babies have been moved within the hospital- there is no power left for the incubators, so they have those still alive are in an operating theatre, the only place where there is any oxygen supplies left.



I hope with all my heart they do get them out without further losses, but with no electricity for their machines or monitors its only a matter of time if they don't get out very, very soon.

Meanwhile in other Israeli atrocities-

'The UN says one of its offices in Gaza City was shelled overnight, with "reports of deaths & injured" among civilians sheltering there.
"This is wrong on every count. Civilians, civilian infrastructure & the inviolability of UN facilities must be always protected." the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Achim Steiner says.

'The charity MSF has warned that hospitals more widely in Gaza have been under "relentless bombardment"
And to round it all off Israel is also threatening to reduce Lebanon to rubble - "Israeli defence minister has warned the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, that Israel can do in Beirut what it's doing in Gaza."- BBC

Presumably he means they will massacre the civilian population or drive them out of Beirut and commit all the same war crimes there too.

Sad though it is I suspect things will play out like this, there will be a fudge around Israeli crimes aided and abetted by US, France, Germany and the UK so ensure there is no censure for Israeli war crimes, they will use there veto at the UN to block any charges against Israel or its individual members, inflaming tensions in the Arab world against the West further. There will be a period of tension in the region with random outbreaks of terrorism and violence on all sides, time will pass, enough for the US to be unable to maintain two aircraft carriers and all else there- and then the Arab world will explode and terrorist, militant and reinvigorated youth sparked on by the Israeli atrocities will attempt to remove Israel. And it will come from all sides at once, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt and Saudi, even I suspect while their governments cry out against it, I doubt they will be in a position to stop it.
It's a horrible future and a horrible prospect.


On a side note, ever wonder why there are so many wars in the world, where does everyone get all that ammunition and weaponry from? Well mainly America, who have provided more than 60% of all the weaponry on this planet. For so long as America has no conscious where the making of a dollar is concerned this will never stop, the US military complex are, far and away, clear and obviously, the largest warmongers and suppliers and stirrers of war history has ever known, on a scale thats mind-boggling, they flood the world with lethal weapons of war, create mass instability and above all mass death, and all for the sake of a buck.
And none seems interested in stopping it, or even addressing it. }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ and the crimes just keep on going-

'The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says the Al Quds hospital in northern Gaza is no longer operational as its fuel reserves have run out.
Medical staff are still attempting to treat patients without electricity, the PRCS says in a statement, "amid dire humanitarian conditions and a shortage of medical supplies, food, and water".
"The hospital has been left to fend for itself under ongoing Israeli bombardment, posing severe risks to the medical staff, patients, and displaced civilians." It adds that the Israeli presence has intensified, and it has been prevented from sending ambulances to affected areas - resulting in "numerous unclaimed bodies". -BBC

The response from the IDF when questioned by the BBC?

"unable to address or confirm specific queries" relating to ongoing military operations.' }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{Israel is denying there is any power issues at the hospital, saying theres loads. Of course they do.

"That is not true," Herzog says about there being a lack of power at the hospital. "There is a lot of spin by Hamas. There is electricity in Shifa, everything is operating."

Unbelievable bold faced lying to the worlds face to justify murder. We can see the evidence with our own eyes in the photographs, read it in the reports from the Doctors and staff in the hospital, and hear about it from the few international journalists who are in the facility. }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ latest update on the hospitals situation

'Al-Shifa cardiac ward destroyed say Health officials'- Aljazeera news

Elsewhere, South Africa's Foreign Minister, Naledi Pandor, and SA is a country that knows what apartheid looks like, has said -

“We call on the prosecutor [of the International Criminal Court] to speed up the investigation and explore breaches of three of the four crimes under ICC jurisdiction: war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. We expect that warrants of arrest should be executed for those most responsible as per the ICC principles of command and superior responsibility,” she said, adding that these include Netanyahu and some of his cabinet members."

SA has already recalled its Ambassadors from Israel, but its good to see they are rasing the point of expectation that the International Court will act. Though I'd still expect the West to veto any attempt to arrest any Israeli for war crimes. But that will not help either, it will only fuel further resentment and embed even further that the West are hypocrites where Israel is concerned and where the loss of Arab civilian lives is concerned, producing further grounds for radicalisation of the young going ahead.}}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Worth mentioning, something else no one seems too keen to talk about, why are Hamas in control of Gaza at all? On the surface it's easy, they won an election, but in fact they fought a civil war for it with their main rival Palestinian group called Fatah ( whose modern equivalent is the PLO) in what's come known as the Battle for Gaza, which happened in 2007.
And it's well known in that conflict Israel deliberately inflamed tensions through Mossad operatives and helped Hamas take control of Gaza. Why? They believed in a divide and conquer strategy. If the Palestinians had no single authority to speak for them, then the chances of ever reaching agreement on a two state solution would be zero. And organised political resistance from Palestinian against the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements would be largely unchallenged.

Israel maintains this strategy to this day, with Netanyahu saying in a press conference earlier today that, 'he opposed the return of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority' to Gaza, as that would unite the Palestinians under one authority.

This puts Israel, for the first time, in direct conflict with its biggest ally the US, with Blinken saying post Hamas that the PLO (modern Fatah) should be “playing a central role” in the rebuilding and running of Gaza post Hamas. }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Well Israel left some fuel for the hospital- well they say they did. They claim Hamas stopped it going to the hospital, Hamas say no they didn't and the Doctors say they didn't either, more importantly it is just an obvious pr stunt by Israel even if they did. Why? According to the hospital the amount of fuel Israel says it left for them is maybe enough to run the generator for about 1 hour.
In other words as good as useless. It was purely done to respond to international outrage at Israeli brutality and cruelty to the most in need of help and aid- the patients in the hospital and the staff. Unconscionable. }}

[Mrs Figg]

That utter twat Cameron is back as Foreign Secretary. These are surely the end days for the Tories.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ We need a General Election now. The thought of leaving these criminals in charge another year is terrifying. Not only that we've had since Boris, the last elected PM, 3 PM's no one elected- May, Truss and Sunak, each an utter disaster to the country.

Only good news he had to sack nutjob Braverman, the Home Secretary who got the mission briefing upside down- for those who not up to date on UK politics, her job was to support the police and try to keep community tensions running as low as possible in the build up to a tricky weekend for policing in London, with a massive pro Palestinian rally and Remembrance Day ceremony- instead she comes out publicly accusing the police of bias to left wing protests (a play stolen right out of the Republican culture war play book which has no relevance here) undermined the operational impartiality of the police by trying to force them to ban the march, a crucial tenant of our democracy she was trying to destroy (good on the Police Commissioner who was having none of her) and attacked pro-Palestinian protesters as a 'hate-mob', and claimed they would attack the Cenotaph on Memorial Day - in reality what happened was the march was made up mainly of families and went off peacefully and went nowhere near the Cenotaph, with a handful of minor arrests. The trouble came from the far right, with disgusting groups like the English Defence League riled up by the Home Secretary to come out against the Pro-Palestinian march - there were over 100 of them arrested as they attacked police lines chanting "You're not English any more" at them.

She had to go, only thing surprises me is that Sunak had the balls to actually do it.

As to Cameron, an utter disaster of a PM whose weakness led to the self-inflicted damage of Brexit, and now he's Foreign Sec? With everything going on in the world right now that spineless, useless clown is in charge of our foreign policy? Fuck me.   }}

[Mrs Figg]

Most of the MSM has been lying about the anti-Jewish march on Armistice Day.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ it wasnt even anti-Jewish, it was more a stop the war march, with the main demand being for a ceasefire. The political rhetoric of the day was aimed at the government of Israel not Jews in general.

What was amazing was to see the pro-Israel rally in Paris, and what was amazing at that was the Israeli lobby were marching hand and hand with the far right- as apparently being brown is worse than being Jewish! Seems anyone who slaughters Muslims is good by them.}}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Well Braverman's resignation letter was quite something! Nutty and far right, but it was something. An unprecedented three page tirade of anger and venom, it really is worth a read in a full-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67416146

Some choice bits of ranting-

'Despite you having been rejected by a majority of party members during the summer leadership contest and thus having no personal mandate to be prime minister'

'You have manifestly and repeatedly failed to deliver on every single one of these key policies. Either your distinctive style of government means you are incapable of doing so. Or, as I must surely conclude now, you never had any intention of keeping your promises.'

'You opted instead for wishful thinking as a comfort blanket to avoid having to make hard choices.'

'your magical thinking..'

'you have no appetite for doing what is necessary'

and some choice bits of the sort of insane policies she actually wanted, such as taking us out of all our international treaty obligations on asylum and refugees so we can do what we want to them without any legal recourse on their part-

'the way to securely and swiftly deliver our Rwanda partnership would be to block off the ECHR, the HRA and any other obligations which inhibit our ability to remove those with no right to be in the UK.'

and she wanted anyone supporting Palestinians, not Hamas, just marching for Palestinian at all, stopped, bugger the right to protest it seems -

'has been your failure to rise to the challenge posed by the increasingly vicious antisemitism and extremism displayed on our streets since Hamas's terrorist atrocities of 7 October.
I have become hoarse urging you to consider legislation to ban the hate marches and help stem the rising tide of racism, intimidation and terrorist glorification threatening community cohesion. I regret to say that your response has been uncertain, weak, and lacking in the qualities of leadership that this country needs.
As on so many other issues, you sought to put off tough decisions in order to minimise political risk to yourself. In doing so, you have increased the very real risk these marches present to everyone else.'

The Tories are having each other for dinner! Last time I saw a political party eat its own this brutally was, unsurprisingly the Tries when they did for Thatcher. But this is worse. If Braverman gives a resignation speech in the House it'll be packed out to the rafters!}}

[Mrs Figg]

"has been your failure to rise to the challenge posed by the increasingly vicious antisemitism and extremism displayed on our streets since Hamas's terrorist atrocities of 7 October."

She is right about that, and anyone who appoints Cameron gets whats coming. As for the Labour party, Starmer did a good job of ousting the Hamas apologists like Corbyn and Chris Williamson. He is a particularly disgusting object. He called Hamas 'freedom fighters'.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Hamas is much like the IRA Figg, they are not one thing, those who carried out the atrocities and the kidnappings come from the hard line military wing, your 'real IRA' nutjob equivalents, but there is a more moderate political wing, akin to Sinn Féin. And you have to bear in mind to the people of Gaza Hamas is their local authority, day to day they aren't being terrorists, they are running the hospitals, water, electricity, food supplies, they help people find housing and work, and for many Gazans that's the side to Hamas they see most often throughout their lives under the occupation. They are to many Palestinians not only freedom fighters but the daily administration. The people who help them, when no one else is.
If the UK had lumped all the different groups that actually made up the IRA together as all just evil terrorists who must be defeated and destroyed, there would be no peace agreement today, no Sinn Féin to sit in the Parliament to speak for those the IRA represented under British occupation.
Nothing is as simple as good and evil, unfortunately.
And we've made this mistake before in Iraq, where we thought well they are all bad guys and took out everything government related, but that just means the equivalent of the civil service don't get paid, infrastructure and services collapse into chaos, and lots of people get very angry and worse, it leaves a vacuum usually filled only after a lengthy period of more violence. And there is no one left with any authority to stop it or make peace with while it goes on. It was a disastrous policy then and it would be again.
There are only two choices in the end, you either wipe out those who oppose you entirely, or you make peace with them. But for the latter there has to be someone left on the other side to make peace with.
The alternative to making peace is in a generations time Hamas Mark 2, angrier and mentally scarred and out for nothing but brutal cruel vengeance. The cycle continues. }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ The BBC managed to get in contact with a Doctor in the Al Shifa hospital-

'Dr Ahmed Mokhallalati's frustration, anger and concern for his patients poured out, down the line.
He asked where the Red Cross and British and American governments were.
"Is everyone just waiting for us all to die here and then say 'we were good people'?"
The plastic surgeon spoke of fear among staff and patients trapped inside Al-Shifa as Israeli soldiers move through the building.
He said people trying to leave the hospital in recent days had been shot at by Israeli forces.'

Hamas have agreed a 3 day humanitarian ceasefire in return for releasing hostages, negotiated by Quatar, but Israel is refusing it.
Does Israel wants its hostages back less than it wants to wipe out the Palestinians?}}

[Mrs Figg]

More to the point, what are neighbouring Muslim countries doing? They always criticize the West, but their 'brother' Islamists do fuck all to help. Egypt closes its borders and san fairy ann if they sink or swim..

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ In short, they are trying to keep a lid on it. The governments of the other nations, especially Saudi and Egypt dont want, and haven't for a long time association with any organisation the West has deemed terrorists, not good for business, or peace either genuinely, and political reasons, Iran being a big rival and an opposing military block who do like having groups the West call terrorist as their friends. So there are good reasons they haven't jumped in full force.
But that doesn't mean they don't fund or support the Palestinians either however via the PLO or also Hamas covertly, just as the IRA got its primary funding from the United States, but not officially, they just didn't do anything to stop fund raisers and such for the 'Irish cause'. But they knew where the money was going and that it was being used to fund a terrorist campaign (freedom fighters to them) to kill and maim British civilians and state personnel.
Just the same, Muslim groups in all those Arab countries will provide help to Palestinian groups, moderate to zealot, even if officially their governments are not, it's just like America and the IRA, they don't necessarily try very hard to stop it.

And Egypt is right to be careful of its border, it does not have the means to take over a million refugees into the Sinai, and more importantly most Arab countries believe the plan for Israel is the mass forced relocation of the Palestinian people into Egypt, upon which Israel will close the border to them and abandon them there and claim Gaza for themselves under a blanket of 'security'. For Egypt to mass open their borders they would be aiding Israel in a war crime, as well giving themselves a massive problem in refugees. }}

[halfwise]

just as the IRA got its primary funding from the United States, but not officially, they just didn't do anything to stop fund raisers and such for the 'Irish cause'.

My reaction to that was "Really?" Here's a view from a Dublin bureau chief for the Boston Globe. He doesn't go into numbers but basically says the claims of the IRA getting most of their funding from the USA private donations is greatly exaggerated.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ira/reports/america.html

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Interesting article Halfy, glad you brought it to my attention. There were full on, what presumably then must have been propaganda 'documentaries' made in the 60's, 70's and 80's abut the arms and money trade, funded with US dollars, on British TV that I remember from my childhood, and of course numerous tabloid stories in the newspapers.
And given my location on the West Coast of Scotland, in a church going family in what was then a deeply Protestant area, with family members in the Orange Lodge I had little reason then to question much, there has been over the years much to undo and unlearn, good to have another little piece amended. }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ And so Israel finally comes out and says the truth in the open, what has been for them all along the aim, the removal by force of Palestinian people from Gaza and the West Bank in favour of Israeli settlers- }}

'Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel said “instead of funneling money to rebuild Gaza or to the failed UNRWA, the international community can assist in the costs of resettlement, helping the people of Gaza build new lives in their new host countries”.
The minister said the international community should promote the “voluntary resettlement” of Palestinians from Gaza around the globe.'