Hamas

[tatty]

What is your opinion of Hamas being called to the ICC?

Is the amount of force used by Israel a war crime or justified retaliation?

[VermilionUK]

Every comment I make that criticises Israel ...

... asserts a moral equivalency reflecting a political agenda and focus based on willfull ignorance at best.

I guess we'll have to concede that we differ on the view of who the ignorant person in this debate really is.

[Jayhawker Soule]

Every comment I make that criticises Israel ...

... asserts a moral equivalency reflecting a political agenda and focus based on willfull ignorance at best.

I guess we'll have to concede that we differ on the view of who the ignorant person in this debate really is.

I understand your view and its derivation.

I've studied Israel for decades, monitor three of its newspapers daily, traveled the country, and supported its civil rights movement. You don't even come close. More to the point, as much as I decry the very real and egregious excesses of the Israeli right, it is precisely those such you who increasingly enable and thereby sustain Hamas and the existential conflict that breeds those excesses.

[VermilionUK]

I've studied Israel for decades, monitor three of its newspapers daily, traveled the country, and supported its civil rights movement. You don't even come close.

Oh, I didn't realise it was a competition....

More to the point, as much as I decry the very real and egregious excesses of the Israeli right, it is precisely those such you who increasingly enable and thereby sustain Hamas and the existential conflict that breeds those excesses.

I really don't see how. I don't say "Hamas are wonderful freedom fighters, death to Israel!" do I?

I say "both sides have done wrong and both sides need punishment or international acknowledgement that they have done wrong" - I really don't see the harm in saying that.

[Jayhawker Soule]

Testimony worth hearing ... over and over again!

[VermilionUK]

Testimony worth hearing ... over and over again!

You provide this link as if it wipes away any possible accusation of wrong-doing by Israel.
"Israel did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare" Really? I mean, really?

- Israel used phosphorus
- Israel targetted an area just metres from a UN school
- Israel blocked the Red-Cross ambulances from aiding civilians

Now re-read that statement: "Israel did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare"

Don't get me wrong, Hamas/Hezbollah commit disgraceful acts on a regular basis, and endanger civilians, but please don't give the impression that Israel is entirely innocent. It's very misleading to those who read what you have said in this topic.

But I still don't think you fully understand what I've been saying. I've not been saying that Israel are the "big bad wolf" - so to speak, I've been saying that they've done wrong, and need to be held accountable.

I think people need to wake up and stop thinking that Israel can do no wrong - it prevents us from discussing the issue.

[Jayhawker Soule]

Testimony worth hearing ... over and over again!

You provide this link as if it wipes away any possible accusation of wrong-doing by Israel.
"Israel did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare" Really? I mean, really?

- Israel used phosphorus
- Israel targetted an area just metres from a UN school
- Israel blocked the Red-Cross ambulances from aiding civilians

Now re-read that statement: "Israel did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare"

Don't get me wrong, Hamas/Hezbollah commit disgraceful acts on a regular basis, and endanger civilians, but please don't give the impression that Israel is entirely innocent. It's very misleading to those who read what you have said in this topic.

But I still don't think you fully understand what I've been saying. I've not been saying that Israel are the "big bad wolf" - so to speak, I've been saying that they've done wrong, and need to be held accountable.

I think people need to wake up and stop thinking that Israel can do no wrong - it prevents us from discussing the issue.

Pathetic strawman caricatures about people who think "that Israel can do no wrong" aside, I know precisely what you've been saying and what you represent.

[Jayhawker Soule]

Again ...

From Rabbi Yoffie's Remarks to J Street Convention:

• This is not the time for a full discussion of the Goldstone report, which in my view was fatally flawed. There are many questions that one might legitimately ask about Israel's conduct of the war: Why was it necessary for Israeli forces to use so much firepower? How do you carry out a war against a terrorist organization that attacks your citizens and hides amid a civilian population? What risks are Israeli soldiers obligated to take, beyond those inherent in combat, to prevent harm to civilians? The Israelis that I know are asking these questions; it is right for them to do so, and it is right for the government of Israel to deal with these issues.
  
  But the Goldstone report chose not to focus on these questions. Its central assertion is that Israel targeted Palestinian civilians, intentionally causing their deaths. This is a stunning and outrageous charge. I reject it, the people of Israel reject it, and - most important - it is not supported by the facts. This is not a thoughtful judicial report attempting to make difficult moral judgments. It is a political report based largely on unverifiable Palestinian claims that is meant to be used as a sledgehammer to bludgeon Israel.
  
  If you doubt this, read the report. Its reasoning is shaky in some places and more often absurd. The accusations against Palestinians are expressed in language that is understated and restrained, while the accusations against Israel are expressed in wording that is sweeping, bold, and absolute. And upon closer inspection, many of these charges include phrases such as "it seems that," "it would appear," and "we have no definite proof but..." In an interview in the Forward, Goldstone acknowledged that nothing in the report could be used as proof in a court of law and that it contained no actual "evidence" of wrongdoing by Israel. Among the public that heard about this report and the diplomatic community that seized upon it, I doubt if one person in a hundred is aware of what we are now told is the report's limited scope. Didn't Justice Goldstone have an obligation to make this clear from the beginning? And this too: you cannot be a moral agent if you serve an immoral master, and Richard Goldstone should be ashamed of himself for working under the auspices of the U.N. Human Rights Council.
  
  It will be important for Israel to continue with the investigations that it has already begun. Still, I suspect and I fear that the damage has already been done. This report, no matter how compelling the refutations that follow, will become a staple of U.N. gatherings and international meetings. It will be used to incite against Israel and to portray every Israeli leader connected with the military as a war criminal. It will become an instrument to inflame Palestinian extremism. And it will be invoked every time that Israel defends itself against attacks on its civilian centers. In short, it has made the work of peace much harder than it already was. [source]

From Robert L Bernsdtein, founder and director emeritus of Human Rights Watch:

• AS the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.
  
  At Human Rights Watch, we always recognized that open, democratic societies have faults and commit abuses. But we saw that they have the ability to correct them — through vigorous public debate, an adversarial press and many other mechanisms that encourage reform.
  
  That is why we sought to draw a sharp line between the democratic and nondemocratic worlds, in an effort to create clarity in human rights. We wanted to prevent the Soviet Union and its followers from playing a moral equivalence game with the West and to encourage liberalization by drawing attention to dissidents like Andrei Sakharov, Natan Sharansky and those in the Soviet gulag — and the millions in China’s laogai, or labor camps.
  
  When I stepped aside in 1998, Human Rights Watch was active in 70 countries, most of them closed societies. Now the organization, with increasing frequency, casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies.
  
  Nowhere is this more evident than in its work in the Middle East. The region is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.
  
  Israel, with a population of 7.4 million, is home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and, judging by the amount of news coverage, probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world — many of whom are there expressly to cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
  
  Meanwhile, the Arab and Iranian regimes rule over some 350 million people, and most remain brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent. The plight of their citizens who would most benefit from the kind of attention a large and well-financed international human rights organization can provide is being ignored as Human Rights Watch’s Middle East division prepares report after report on Israel.
  
  Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations that go after Israeli citizens and use their own people as human shields. These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
  
  Leaders of Human Rights Watch know that Hamas and Hezbollah chose to wage war from densely populated areas, deliberately transforming neighborhoods into battlefields. They know that more and better arms are flowing into both Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve. Yet Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism.
  
  The organization is expressly concerned mainly with how wars are fought, not with motivations. To be sure, even victims of aggression are bound by the laws of war and must do their utmost to minimize civilian casualties. Nevertheless, there is a difference between wrongs committed in self-defense and those perpetrated intentionally.
  
  But how does Human Rights Watch know that these laws have been violated? In Gaza and elsewhere where there is no access to the battlefield or to the military and political leaders who make strategic decisions, it is extremely difficult to make definitive judgments about war crimes. Reporting often relies on witnesses whose stories cannot be verified and who may testify for political advantage or because they fear retaliation from their own rulers. Significantly, Col. Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and an expert on warfare, has said that the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza “did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.�
  
  Only by returning to its founding mission and the spirit of humility that animated it can Human Rights Watch resurrect itself as a moral force in the Middle East and throughout the world. If it fails to do that, its credibility will be seriously undermined and its important role in the world significantly diminished. [source]

[VermilionUK]

I see what you are saying, and yes, Israel are in an extremely difficult situation. When rockets are fired at them from crowded areas, what can they do? They can't sit back and do nothing, and so they return fire, and as a result, civilian lives are wasted. They've found themselves in a terrible position.

I know precisely what you've been saying and what you represent.

No, you do not "know what I represent", you assume you know what I represent. I think you would do well to stop and think before you post such claims in the future. You seem to be well educated, I would have expected better from a person such as yourself.

I think you've perhaps misunderstood my stance. Maybe my posts have given off an appearance of a person who thinks that Hezbollah/Hamas are entirely innocent, and that Israel are attacking them at will. If that is what my posts have conveyed, then I can only apologise and advise that you wait before stating false claims such as "hamas apologist".

We all accept that Hamas/Hezbollah have done disgraceful things without hesitation, but I fear that we'll never accept Israel's faults and wrong-doings, and from the looks of what has been said in this forum, any attempt to put across the "bad side" of Israel's actions have fallen on deaf ears. And that's a shame...

[Jayhawker Soule]

I see what you are saying, and yes, Israel are in an extremely difficult situation. When rockets are fired at them from crowded areas, what can they do? They can't sit back and do nothing, and so they return fire, and as a result, civilian lives are wasted. They've found themselves in a terrible position.

I know precisely what you've been saying and what you represent.

No, you do not "know what I represent", you assume you know what I represent. I think you would do well to stop and think before you post such claims in the future. You seem to be well educated, I would have expected better from a person such as yourself.

I think you've perhaps misunderstood my stance.

Again, and for the last time, I fully understand your 'stance' and believe it to be thoroughly repugnant, irresponsible, and dangerous.

[VermilionUK]

Again, and for the last time, I fully understand your 'stance' and believe it to be thoroughly repugnant, irresponsible, and dangerous.

I disagree, but fair enough, you're entitled to your opinion.