Their leaders have made statements to that effect. The other less organized idiots are perhaps not as calculating.
Their leaders have made statements to that effect. The other less organized idiots are perhaps not as calculating.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
There is actually more reason to assume Hamas is clueless and not in control.Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Congratulations America
The statements supporting the murder of civilians seem to be pretty clear and consistent.
Hope is the denial of reality
Absolutely. And it's not unusual, it's a pretty common tactic in asymmetric conflict.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Source? And I'm not looking for a couple of Israeli douches, but widespread dancing in the streets like you get in Gaza after 9/11.
The US routinely kills more civilians in the pursuit of military objectives than Israel does.I've tried to keep my posts in one or two threads, but this is ridiculous. The only "Saints" are Israelis. They can do no wrong, even when they do bad things that no other nations could do. Even the US couldn't "get away" with what Israel has done.
It's not just you. It's a very coherent and successful strategy. Israel wages every war with the knowledge that there is a clock running with an unknown amount of time left for them to finish up achieving strategic aims before they're forced to stop by international opprobrium.
I strongly disagree. While I don't doubt that members of Hamas (or those affiliated with them) often go 'off message' or don't all take direction from a central source (as it appears happened in the abduction and murder of the three teenagers back in June), but they still have reasonable levels of control over their ground troops - evidenced by the fact that they can ratchet up and down rocket fire with a great deal of precision, and largely control the flow of goods into and out of Gaza by establishing a well-controlled monopoly on tunnels into Egypt.
Well, pretty much all on one side, but the other side has a few, too:
http://www.worldbulletin.net/world/1...-camps-in-gaza
That's basically calling for ethnic cleansing, no? And googling his name tells me he has previously also applauded murdering 29 Palestinians, and considering he's now deputy speaker, those sentiments aren't as rare as you make them out to be. Let's put it this way, if he was Palestinian, you'd consider him a terrorist leader and he'd be a valid target, no?
BTW, I don't disagree with you that killing civilians is the delight (and actual goal) of only one side, but I don't think it's an extremely rare opinion on the other side either, considering this guy's position.
Edit: or as wiggin put it, there's no widespread dancing in the streets, and I'm not denying that. But if someone like this gets a quarter of the votes for likud leadership, and is deputy speaker, to me that says that it's not a fringe opinion, and that a bigger portion doesn't care about it enough to shun someone politically for glorifying terrorism.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
You get crazies everywhere. The question is whether those crazies have broad popular and political support.
To be a terrorist, he'd actually have to carry out or order a terrorist act...
Hope is the denial of reality
See Flixy's edit.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
23% of a conservative party's primary voters (on 30-40% turnout). To put it another way, Feiglin got about 10k votes. Are we going to compare that to the number of votes Hamas received in the last real election?
Hope is the denial of reality
How do you determine the true extent of the public's support for his kind and worse?
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
What are elections for?
Are you seriously suggesting that there's widespread Israeli support for the murdering of Palestinian civilians?
Hope is the denial of reality
He's a pretty prominent politician, no? Most have non-negligent support, both popular and political.
Point taken, terrorist sympathizer then.
And like I said, I don't dispute with most of what you're saying (i.e. that it's the main objective of Hamas, and that this guy doesn't have broad support), I just think you paint an image of a handful of crazies only in Israel who support this, and guys like this, who are not political nobodies, makes me doubt that it's really such an insignificant group, or at least that enough Israelis don't particularly care, otherwise he wouldn't be in his position.
No, I'm not, I hope I make that clear, but there's room between widespread support and nonexistant, fringe, which is what I'm getting from your posts.What are elections for?
Are you seriously suggesting that there's widespread Israeli support for the murdering of Palestinian civilians?
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
Feiglin is a dick, and there are obviously Israelis who agree with him (otherwise you wouldn't get the occasional bit of really vicious rhetoric and the more infrequent but still troubling Jewish terrorists). He does not, however, represent anything like a consensus in Israel. There is no question that after decades of war, Israelis as a group are less sympathetic to Palestinian civilians than perhaps they should be; nonetheless, I think there is no doubt that on the basis of elections, public opinion polling, public demonstrations, etc. that the 'pragmatic' camp and the 'peacenik' camp are orders of magnitude larger than the 'let's kill/deport all the Palestinians' camp. In fact, Israel's Shabak spends a lot of effort keeping tabs on said camp, which is partly how they are generally able to rapidly apprehend Israelis who carry out attacks of various sorts.
He's in this position because of how primary contests work. Do you realize the kind of crazies you can find that finish second in US Republican primaries?
Hope is the denial of reality
Yes, but to be fair, leadership of a party election is more like what we have, and the guys who come in second or third there tend to be not crazies (I mean, a republican primary runner up for congress seat is a runner up to one of two candidates of one of 435 seats, as opposed to being 2nd for leadership of a party with 1/6th of the seats). You need more broad support there, to be honest. Plus he obviously passed some kind of primary, seeing he was elected to the Knesset, and must have some political support being deputy speaker. Anyway, I didn't mean to derail this thread, because your main point is definitely true that there's only one side broadly supporting and glorifying these attacks, and indeed actively pursuing it.
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
Since you objected to Flixy's implication (that this sort of idea has significant support) on the basis that the figure he cited only reflects the opinons of a minority of the party's primary voters, I am curious as to what you believe the real overall support may be for his kind of politician. Greater? Lower? About the same?What are elections for?
Murdering? No, I don't think so. But I have no delusions about the kind of sophistry that can be mustered in support of deportation, apartheid, retribution, disproportionate collective punishment, torture etc. by the more conservative and hardline sections of a society that is constantly at war with its chronically belligerent neighbours. I don't think there is support for murder. I think there may be growing support for things I would find distasteful but that may be construed as legal and/or desirable eg. in the name of security or preserving religious/national identity.Are you seriously suggesting that there's widespread Israeli support for the murdering of Palestinian civilians?
We are seeing such trends all over Europe, even in developed peaceful countries such as Sweden. What makes you think Israel, a country that has never been free from conflict, would be immune to such trends? I don't think it'd ever approach the levels you see in the Palestinian territories, but that is to be expected--given the social, economic, military, cultural and political differences--and not necessarily worthy of many cookies. Saying "they're at least better than those who support suicide-bombers" is what they call "damning with faint praise".
With all that said, no, I absolutely don't think support for murdering civilians is anywhere near as strong in Israel as it is in the Palestinian territories, but nor do I think that bit of knowledge is of use to this discussion.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
He has political support on the merit of finishing second in the primary of the ruling party...
Hope is the denial of reality
We're talking about 14,500 votes out of a total population of about 8 million. There's no doubt that these votes do not represent the only people who feel this way (or that all of these 14,500 approve of every one of Feiglin's positions, rather than a protest vote against Netanyahu), but it's clearly marginal. He is 15th on Likud's parliamentary list, and I guarantee if he was every #1 on the list (without significantly moderating his views), his party would slump in the following election (which would likely occur immediately due to a collapse in the coalition).
I think the point here is that there have always been and there will always be hardliners in Israel (to suggest this is new is to ignore the long history of right wing ferment in Israel, going all the way back to Etzel and Lehi). Yet advocating the targeting and killing of civilians is beyond the pale in Israeli society, as it should be.
I also want to highlight that there are other members of Israel's parliament that do sanction the killing of civilians - but it's Israeli Jews they're talking about. Several members of Arab parties have routinely condoned or even supported terrorism. While they have been unanimously shouted down by the rest of the Knesset, it is instructive - I can't imagine finding a member of a Palestinian government who would support Israeli actions without being executed as a collaborator. Being a democracy with free speech and a PR parliamentary system means that you will perforce get elected officials with unsavory views; I view it as a strength that these views are not cause for silencing dissent, even when they provoke strong reactions. Feiglin represents a hardline dissent to Netanyahu's more mainstream leadership of Likud (which is why he was placated with a meaningless but impressive-sounding cabinet post); he doesn't get a lot of support nationally, but is allowed to air his views.
Fair enough. Agreed that not silencing dissent is a strength of free speech, then again, so is kicking someone out of a party for saying things like that (over here members have been kicked out of parties for saying various things that are considered too far from the party line, often continuing as a new political party). Goes for all parties, by the way, unless they actually support positions like that they can always take actions. And if you can't because of backlash, that means the position actually has support in your base..
Keep on keepin' the beat alive!
http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/19...h-destruction/
On Tuesday, Palestinian reports out of Gaza said that Gaza residents had attacked Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri Saturday evening, near the Shifa Hospital.
Abu Zuhri arrived at the hospital for an interview with a news outlet. The hospital has often been featured as a backdrop for news interviews in order to elicit sympathy for the plight of Gazan civilians.
However, this time, the civilians had had enough of being used for Hamas’s political propaganda.
Residents of Gaza City, which has been heavily bombarded by Israel due to Hamas’s use of civilian neighborhoods to launch rockets at Israel, attacked the spokesman and blamed him and Hamas for the death of family members and for destruction of their homes.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-analysis-ha...192801275.htmlPalestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki said the Gaza war appears to have boosted Hamas' popularity, but that this might be short-lived if Hamas is seen as impeding reconstruction. If Abbas leads the process effectively, he will get a lot of credit, Shikaki said. "Obviously, if Abbas makes unreasonable demands, such as disarming Hamas, then the public will side with Hamas," he said.
Hope is the denial of reality
Killjoy
Clearly he didn't poll the people who allegedly violated aforementioned asshat
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
And now Hamas broke the cease-fire...
Hope is the denial of reality
Surprise, surprise. And now for a real surprise:
http://m.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-28688179
Not that it's likely to change anything in the coverage ...
Hope is the denial of reality
Eh, we'll see. Unlikely those were Hamas rockets. It certainly seems like the talks in Egypt aren't going anywhere, which isn't surprising - the maximum Israel's willing to concede to Hamas is less than the minimum Hamas needs to declare victory. Yet I doubt that Hamas is really interested in a resumption of hostilities at the tempo of previous weeks; they're running low on ammunition and have a disgruntled populace. Israel, meanwhile, is unlikely to embark on another ground operation absent a clear strategic goal - the costs are too high on a number of levels. There's always the possibility they'll move in to finally isolate the Hamas leadership hiding out under Gaza's main hospital, but I find it unlikely. If anything, we'll see a repeat of Sunday - a few dozen rocket attacks responded to by a few dozen air strikes.
edit: and Egypt seems to think the ceasefire has been extended yet again.
Interesting if Egypt responds to the rocket that hit the Sinai.
Hope is the denial of reality
Rockets hit Sinai on a semi-regular basis... and rockets are often smuggled into Sinai to launch at Israel as well (especially Eilat). Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai are routinely attacked by jihadist types coming from both Gaza and the Egyptian Sinai. Isn't likely to elicit any more of a response than the clampdown that has already happened at the border.
What is interesting is that the injuries and death tolls that happen quite frequently when rockets are launched at either Egyptian targets or misfired at Gaza suggest that Israel's right to argue that these rockets are a clear and present danger. The only reason they haven't killed many Israelis is a combination of passive and active defenses as well as luck.
Hope is the denial of reality
Hope is the denial of reality
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