Israel: Operation Protective Edge - page 12.

sana8410

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Quote from: Rigon on August 15, 2014, 08:38:27 AM

Quote from: sana8410 on August 15, 2014, 08:01:14 AM

Quote from: Rigon on August 15, 2014, 07:47:20 AM

Quote from: sana8410 on August 15, 2014, 06:54:01 AM

Quote from: Rigon on August 15, 2014, 06:30:36 AM

okay so both sides agree to getting an independent monitor to administer the ceasefire

on the the countdown to the ceasefire the monitor says ...

"right you lot, no shooting after the count of three, - one ... two ... bang - ah someone shot me in the ass, - now stop that you bunch of feckin' hooligans"

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And the shelling of Rafah (which has killed up to 40), but yes it is over. It is hard to tell which militant group broke it this time, but it was likely a Palestinian one rather than the IDF.

I find this a bit disingenuous. Does it matter which group broke it, other than for internal finger pointing at this point?

Yes. All Palestinian armed groups are hardly unified, and treating them as such is tactically and politically a misstep. It's like failing to realize (or more likely not caring) about the divide between Hamas and its armed wing and not giving them enough time to bring the armed wing in line back for the first ceasefire which could have avoided the entire ground incursion.

But the problem is that Hamas "guaranteed" the ceasefire. If they are unable to do that, they shouldn't be saying they can. It makes their words worthless. They can't be trusted, any more than if Israel said they would go along with the ceasefire, and some faction within Israel decided to attack Palestinians. Trying to point fingers does nothing for the main issue, which is trustworthiness.

Israel has been striking every security provision aspect of Hamas that they can and you think that they should be able to perfectly control, not only other militant factions, but Salafi Jihadis as well when far less devastated states can't even do that?

You can say all this, but in fact if Hamas is willing to offer/accept a ceasefire, then they need to be able to enforce it on their side. They have proven incapable of doing that. I'm not particularly aware of Israel starting an attack during an existing ceasefire.

Pricetag attacks by settlers are pretty common in the West Bank (and have even made the DoS' list of terrorist activities) as is the deliberate targeting of Hamas persons for arbitrary arrest and detention during ceasefires (once again, in the West Bank). Israel has not only failed to significantly curb these attacks, but generally speaking impunity rules the day in them.

cryptasm

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Quote from: zolace on August 15, 2014, 08:36:10 AM

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3.) It's interesting how you seem to think that when foreign intervention is involved then the examples shouldn't count. Unfortunately for you and your theories, that's not the way that the world works.

It's a different dynamic. Saddam was a shitty leader because he allowed himself to be internationally isolated by alienating all of his former allies and then tried to grab Kuwait while having essentially no support from anyone. It had nothing to do with his use of collective punishment against the Kurds, and certainly not the post-Gulf War Shia Uprisings.

You're right, if Saddam had played the good lil despot and not tried to invade Kuwait he'd probably still be alive and in power. Got to love Western double-standards Grin

zolace

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Quote from: noviapriani on August 14, 2014, 11:48:47 AM

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It only took a US invasion to do it, but hey, clear failure, right?

As someone who is supposed to be all about the outcome, I would assume that death would be nothing but a failure. Your example failed to maintain his position, thus he failed.

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It's under control. Yes. There are terror threats which emerge from it to impact Russia, but beyond that, it's pretty much been crushed.

Weekly violence is hardly "under control".

Yes, but not for the reasons we’re discussing. The North Caucasus isn’t really defined by weekly violence. It has a lower murder rate (9.4 per 100,000) than Chicago (15 per 100,000).

Rigon

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Quote from: sana8410 on August 15, 2014, 08:01:14 AM

Quote from: Rigon on August 15, 2014, 07:47:20 AM

Quote from: sana8410 on August 15, 2014, 06:54:01 AM

Quote from: Rigon on August 15, 2014, 06:30:36 AM

okay so both sides agree to getting an independent monitor to administer the ceasefire

on the the countdown to the ceasefire the monitor says ...

"right you lot, no shooting after the count of three, - one ... two ... bang - ah someone shot me in the ass, - now stop that you bunch of feckin' hooligans"

Quote

And the shelling of Rafah (which has killed up to 40), but yes it is over. It is hard to tell which militant group broke it this time, but it was likely a Palestinian one rather than the IDF.

I find this a bit disingenuous. Does it matter which group broke it, other than for internal finger pointing at this point?

Yes. All Palestinian armed groups are hardly unified, and treating them as such is tactically and politically a misstep. It's like failing to realize (or more likely not caring) about the divide between Hamas and its armed wing and not giving them enough time to bring the armed wing in line back for the first ceasefire which could have avoided the entire ground incursion.

But the problem is that Hamas "guaranteed" the ceasefire. If they are unable to do that, they shouldn't be saying they can. It makes their words worthless. They can't be trusted, any more than if Israel said they would go along with the ceasefire, and some faction within Israel decided to attack Palestinians. Trying to point fingers does nothing for the main issue, which is trustworthiness.

Israel has been striking every security provision aspect of Hamas that they can and you think that they should be able to perfectly control, not only other militant factions, but Salafi Jihadis as well when far less devastated states can't even do that?

You can say all this, but in fact if Hamas is willing to offer/accept a ceasefire, then they need to be able to enforce it on their side. They have proven incapable of doing that. I'm not particularly aware of Israel starting an attack during an existing ceasefire.

zolace

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3.) It's interesting how you seem to think that when foreign intervention is involved then the examples shouldn't count. Unfortunately for you and your theories, that's not the way that the world works.

It's a different dynamic. Saddam was a shitty leader because he allowed himself to be internationally isolated by alienating all of his former allies and then tried to grab Kuwait while having essentially no support from anyone. It had nothing to do with his use of collective punishment against the Kurds, and certainly not the post-Gulf War Shia Uprisings.

sana8410

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They can't be trusted, any more than if Israel said they would go along with the ceasefire, and some faction within Israel decided to attack Palestinians.

That literally happens during every single ceasefire that has ever existed and lasted any significant amount of time since Hamas' takeover of Gaza. Also, according to these standards, the Abbas government should be in a permanent state of war with Israel.

zolace

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Quote from: noviapriani on August 14, 2014, 11:37:38 AM

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Yes. Libya was stopped by France and Sudan by the USA. Not the best of examples since Sudan is also conventionally weak compared to the Israelis.

1.) Libya wasn't stopped by France, France held them off for a while but they were fine to let him have northern Chad and to have western Darfur. France was fairly cozy with Gaddafi, they wanted his oil.

2.) The US didn't stop anything in Sudan. In fact, Sudan remains one of the largest active conflict zones in the world, and Bashir's policies haven't helped him come out on top.

3.) It's interesting how you seem to think that when foreign intervention is involved then the examples shouldn't count. Unfortunately for you and your theories, that's not the way that the world works.

The Chadians got quite a lot of arms from France. The US was even more consistently pro-Chad than the French when it came to providing arms to use against Gaddafi.

The US is known to have supplied the SPLA with arms and other support. It's partially why they were so successful.

zolace

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You're forgetting that we used the gassing of the Kurds as justification to damage his regime from afar and then used it in part to drum up support to kill him (which we did). Once again, you seem to be living in a fantasy world where there are no internal or external reactions to mass abuses.

Which became a justification long after the fact, and only after he decided to invade Kuwait. The official US government view was that the Halabja poison gas attacks were the work of Iran. Totally understandable considering that he was essentially an American proxy during the Iran-Iraq war. If he hadn't invaded Kuwait, the US wasn't going to attack him for it.

Or take Hafez Assad. He was able to butcher 20-40,000 civilians in Hama for supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, using tanks and artillery to systematically flatten areas that harbored anti-regime forces. Nothing happened to him and the Soviet Union continued to support him.

The truth is nations react to human rights abuses when they find it in their interests to do so. That's why America was perfectly happy to secretly supply the Nicaraguan Contras, or indirectly support Pol Pot's insurgency against the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian government, but intervened when Iraq seized Kuwait's oil reserves and put America's energy security at risk.

sana8410

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Quote from: Rigon on August 15, 2014, 07:47:20 AM

Quote from: sana8410 on August 15, 2014, 06:54:01 AM

Quote from: Rigon on August 15, 2014, 06:30:36 AM

okay so both sides agree to getting an independent monitor to administer the ceasefire

on the the countdown to the ceasefire the monitor says ...

"right you lot, no shooting after the count of three, - one ... two ... bang - ah someone shot me in the ass, - now stop that you bunch of feckin' hooligans"

Quote

And the shelling of Rafah (which has killed up to 40), but yes it is over. It is hard to tell which militant group broke it this time, but it was likely a Palestinian one rather than the IDF.

I find this a bit disingenuous. Does it matter which group broke it, other than for internal finger pointing at this point?

Yes. All Palestinian armed groups are hardly unified, and treating them as such is tactically and politically a misstep. It's like failing to realize (or more likely not caring) about the divide between Hamas and its armed wing and not giving them enough time to bring the armed wing in line back for the first ceasefire which could have avoided the entire ground incursion.

But the problem is that Hamas "guaranteed" the ceasefire. If they are unable to do that, they shouldn't be saying they can. It makes their words worthless. They can't be trusted, any more than if Israel said they would go along with the ceasefire, and some faction within Israel decided to attack Palestinians. Trying to point fingers does nothing for the main issue, which is trustworthiness.

Israel has been striking every security provision aspect of Hamas that they can and you think that they should be able to perfectly control, not only other militant factions, but Salafi Jihadis as well when far less devastated states can't even do that?

zolace

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Quote from: noviapriani on August 14, 2014, 11:28:28 AM

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Russia in Chechnya was able to use thermobaric bombs on civilian targets, shoot civilians into mass graves, and use home demolitions without any serious international repercussions.

And the Caucasus remain unstable to this day, and likewise the russian government is nowhere near able to exert as much influence in the region as the Untied States government is able to exert on every part of its country.

Not denying that. But it's essentially an act of empire building to keep the Caucasus as part of Russia, so I'd say it's rather different from comparing an internal conflict within the US to an internal conflict between Russia and Chechnya.

zolace

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Interesting how you had to ignore the Sudan and Iraq examples.

I've discussed Iraq already. Saddam actually successfully used collective punishment and violence-based strategies to crush the Shiite insurgency. It took the most powerful military force in the world to dislodge him from power, so I'd hardly say that it proves collective punishment doesn't work.

Sudan I can see as a fairly good counterexample, but again, the factions it faced were closer to parity in terms of power relative to the government in Khartoum. Hamas doesn't have any serious conventional response to Israeli forces in the same way the JEM or SPLA did.

Rigon

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Quote from: sana8410 on August 15, 2014, 06:54:01 AM

Quote from: Rigon on August 15, 2014, 06:30:36 AM

okay so both sides agree to getting an independent monitor to administer the ceasefire

on the the countdown to the ceasefire the monitor says ...

"right you lot, no shooting after the count of three, - one ... two ... bang - ah someone shot me in the ass, - now stop that you bunch of feckin' hooligans"

Quote

And the shelling of Rafah (which has killed up to 40), but yes it is over. It is hard to tell which militant group broke it this time, but it was likely a Palestinian one rather than the IDF.

I find this a bit disingenuous. Does it matter which group broke it, other than for internal finger pointing at this point?

Yes. All Palestinian armed groups are hardly unified, and treating them as such is tactically and politically a misstep. It's like failing to realize (or more likely not caring) about the divide between Hamas and its armed wing and not giving them enough time to bring the armed wing in line back for the first ceasefire which could have avoided the entire ground incursion.

But the problem is that Hamas "guaranteed" the ceasefire. If they are unable to do that, they shouldn't be saying they can. It makes their words worthless. They can't be trusted, any more than if Israel said they would go along with the ceasefire, and some faction within Israel decided to attack Palestinians. Trying to point fingers does nothing for the main issue, which is trustworthiness.

zolace

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Quote

To the same extent as Israel in Gaza? No, but they had a large professional and well experienced army.

Rwanda is a nation of 12 million. The Congo has 78 million inhabitants. There's also no measurable material difference in terms of equipment, though the Rwandans are FAR more professional. It simply isn't possible for a relatively small nation to occupy a big one, especially an infrastructure clusterfuck like the Congo.

Israel, on the other hand, has enormous reserves of heavy conventional arms which inhabitants of Gaza have no access to. Israel possesses the capability to systematically flatten Gaza and overwhelm its defenders like Russia did in Grozny.

boumalo

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Few facts :

-Most Israeli don't support their government actions like the British, French or Americans don't support most wars made by their politicians

-Israel is stronger than Palestine since its economy is extremely more advanced, they received money from oversea and their armee is quite strong but they are actually weak in a long term perspective because a lot of people hate them, especially from countries around them

-All countries would protect the surrounding of a their city if they were bombed daily, at least hope so

-Hamas is the worst for Palestine

-Reports on what is happening in Palestine is not facts, including the number of innocent civil casualties

zolace

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Quote from: noviapriani on August 14, 2014, 11:19:32 AM

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So is Hamas too incompetent to stop the rockets, or does it just not care?

Is Russia too incompetent to prevent a thousand Chechens from streaming into Syria to wage Jihad or does it just not care? Should we blame Russia for the activities of Chechens in Ukraine too?

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The Rwandans also have nowhere near enough power to really control the Congo in the same way the Israelis could deal with Gaza.

To the same extent as Israel in Gaza? No, but they had a large professional and well experienced army.

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The Assad administration is winning, and was essentially forced to use those tactics anyway since he had no realistic alternative except surrender.

Interesting how you had to ignore the Sudan and Iraq examples.

No more than the British or French are for their citizens going to Syria to fight. Lots of the Chechens had fled Russia in the period immediately after the active combat phases of the Second Chechen war, or had escaped Russian mopping up operations and fled into the more inaccessible parts of the Caucasus. Lots of them hide out in the Pankisi gorge in Georgia, so if anything, it makes more sense for Russia to bomb Georgia again for failing to do something about it.

zolace

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Quote from: noviapriani on August 14, 2014, 11:05:17 AM

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We did? The only collective punishment I can recall in the Congo was Mobutu's alliance with the Hutu groups, along with stoking inter-ethnic conflict against the Banyamulenge Tutsis as a play to preserve his power. That backfired horribly when the Banyamulenge aligned with Rwanda and formed the basis of the force that tossed Mobutu out. In any case, it's a really bad example since a lot of the "collective punishment" in the Eastern Congo is just random violence by militias.

Then you don't remember the DR Congo conflict very well. All sides engaged in such tactics, including the professional armies of Mobutu himself, and the armies of Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, along with their direct proxies, and I can assure you that a lot of the violence from them wasn't simply "random violence" but was very targeted along ethnic lines.

(Totally random, and irrelevant aside, are you really describing Mobutu's forces as professional? )
Aside from the Banyamulenge being targeted by the FDLR and Mobutu's government, and a continuation of violence against Tutsis by remnants of the Interahamwe, and Rwandan massacres of Hutu refugees? Those are the only examples of truly ethnically targeted violence committed towards a particular end in the Congo that I can think of.

I don't like using the Congo as an example of much of anything when it comes to modern war. It's only a modern conflict in terms of the weapons. In terms of its dynamics, it was an anachronism that played out like the 30 Years War, with limited true military clashes and lots of civilian deaths caused by rampaging and pillaging military forces.

sana8410

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Quote from: Rigon on August 15, 2014, 06:30:36 AM

okay so both sides agree to getting an independent monitor to administer the ceasefire

on the the countdown to the ceasefire the monitor says ...

"right you lot, no shooting after the count of three, - one ... two ... bang - ah someone shot me in the ass, - now stop that you bunch of feckin' hooligans"

Quote

And the shelling of Rafah (which has killed up to 40), but yes it is over. It is hard to tell which militant group broke it this time, but it was likely a Palestinian one rather than the IDF.

I find this a bit disingenuous. Does it matter which group broke it, other than for internal finger pointing at this point?

Yes. All Palestinian armed groups are hardly unified, and treating them as such is tactically and politically a misstep. It's like failing to realize (or more likely not caring) about the divide between Hamas and its armed wing and not giving them enough time to bring the armed wing in line back for the first ceasefire which could have avoided the entire ground incursion.

zolace

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So then you believe that you should be targeted then? Afterall if you are in Moscow then you live in a country where you allow terrorist groups to exist and carry out attacks. So you must be supporting them right?

Of course not. It doesn't make sense to target groups that provide no material support for insurgents. For instance, if one wished to practice collective punishment in Iraq, why would you target the Kurds since they clearly OPPOSE the insurgency? Targetting the Sunnis in Iraq, Pashtuns in Afghanistan, or Chechens in Russia makes absolute sense. Doing the same for the Kurds, Hazara, or ethnic Russians does not.

zolace

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Quote from: noviapriani on August 14, 2014, 10:51:43 AM

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2) I'm aware of that. However, the only question of importance is how to engineer the outcome you want. If the Qassam brigades shoot rockets, or other non-state actors commit acts of terrorism, it's best to throw proportionality out the window and escalate violence to a level they can't match. State actors will have that advantage against non-state ones, and really ought to take advantage of it.

I highly doubt that the outcome a state wants is reflected in global isolation or in a failed state status.

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3) The idea is more to deter civilians and punish them for not taking action against the terrorists operating amongst them. I'm completely aware of the fact that it's not consistent with international law, but think that's secondary to defeating this kind of radicalism.

So then you believe that you should be targeted then? Afterall if you are in Moscow then you live in a country where you allow terrorist groups to exist and carry out attacks. So you must be supporting them right?

Russia systematically demolished Grozny, killing thousands of civilians. The West shrugged. Just because you fight a really aggressive campaign against terrorists doesn't automatically mean international isolation.

zolace

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Quote from: noviapriani on August 14, 2014, 10:45:05 AM

Quote from: zolace on July 28, 2014, 11:52:35 AM

Quote from: umair127 on July 25, 2014, 09:28:31 AM

Quote from: zolace on July 23, 2014, 09:55:00 AM

Quote from: sana8410 on July 18, 2014, 12:45:32 PM

Quote from: zolace on July 18, 2014, 11:25:19 AM

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It is largely Jihadi Salafi groups firing the rockets, groups that are actually opposed to Hamas, which is why it is easier to recognize the overzealous targeting of Hamas in the campaign. the same was true of their search for and accusations surrounding the missing students which third party groups claimed responsibility for, but which Netanyahu took the opportunity to blame on Hamas instead and used it as a justification to illegally harass and target Hamas affiliates.

Easy. Because these Salafist groups are operating because of either the incompetence of Hamas, or their weakness, and because of the acquiescence or support of the civilian population.
Collective responsibility merits collective punishment. Gaza's population supported Hamas, and acquiesces to, if not outright supports the Salafists. It makes absolute sense to hold them collectively responsible for allowing terrorists to operate amongst them.

There's never been a good example of an occupying force succeeding with a population-centric counter insurgency strategy. The most successful examples of crushing insurgencies, like Sri Lanka, involved a willingness to use violence and force to achieve victory.

You're contradicting yourself here, Salafists tend to hate the Muslim Brotherhood. Claiming that the Gazan population loves both the Salafists and Hamas doesn't make any sense. It's also dumb to assume that just because a group operates within a territory that 1.) the government likes them and 2.) that the population likes them. I'm pretty sure that the people who suffer from Mayi Mayi attacks in the DRC don't do so with smiles. Nor does it make sense to bomb government forces that are aligned against them if your goal is to see them destroyed. It's pretty dumb to bomb Kinshasa and kill their soldiers while asking them why they aren't able to kill off the M23 rebels.

Collective responsibility merits collective punishment. Gaza's population supported Hamas, and acquiesces to, if not outright supports the Salafists. It makes absolute sense to hold them collectively responsible for allowing terrorists to operate amongst them.

Of course using collective punishment like that in the Congo is stupid. It would be stupid to kill civilians in Herat or other non-Pashtun regions of Afghanistan in response to the Taliban’s insurgency for the same reason. In either case, they’re far removed from the conflict and don’t really have the ability to intervene.

In contrast, the Salafists are operating amongst civilians in Gaza. The civilians aren’t making any serious attempt to stop them and in all probability, are actively aiding them. If the M23 were getting support from particular villages, then it would make sense to target those civilians. Similarly, Pashtun villages that collaborate with insurgents should be demolished by carpet bombing. Gaza’s civilians must be taught to stop supporting people who attack Israel, so it makes sense to collectively punish them.

Personally, I’d be far less restrained than the Israelis were being if insurgents in some neighboring country were firing rockets at mine.

1.) You're still contradicting yourself when it comes to then notion of dual Palestinian support for both Hamas and Salafi organizations. The two are diametrically opposed to and hate one another. Suggesting that everyone in Gaza supports both is silly because that's not the kind of relationship that the Brotherhood has with Salafis. They don't even have the same goals; Salafis are against the idea of a Palestinian state and don't support working through government mechanisms in Gaza, so claiming that they support Hamas: a political governmental organization aiming to establish a Palestinian state, is more than a bit off.

2.) The notion of collective responsibility is the same exact justification that the Al Qassam brigade uses to justify launching rockets at Israeli civilians. Congratulations, you're a supporter of terrorism.

3.) The concept of collective responsibility in Gaza doesn't even make any sense seeing as how it ignores the fact that Hamas doesn't rule there with the direct consent of the people. They weren't elected overlords of Gaza and there was no referendum on rocket attacks. They seized Gaza by force after the civil conflict with Fatah. Even outside of this, the notion of collective responsibility and thus the oking of collective punishment is not recognized as valid or legal under either international law, or Israeli law.

1) So where do these Salafists derive support from? Mars? They use civilians as human shields and derive support, or at least acquiescence, of the civilian poulation. Why not hold the civilians responsible for failing to take action against them?

2) I'm aware of that. However, the only question of importance is how to engineer the outcome you want. If the Qassam brigades shoot rockets, or other non-state actors commit acts of terrorism, it's best to throw proportionality out the window and escalate violence to a level they can't match. State actors will have that advantage against non-state ones, and really ought to take advantage of it.

3) The idea is more to deter civilians and punish them for not taking action against the terrorists operating amongst them. I'm completely aware of the fact that it's not consistent with international law, but think that's secondary to defeating this kind of radicalism.

They derive support from small cells and specific families. Trying to tie them directly to the rest of the population and then justify targeting said civilian population because of ethnic ties is dumb. It would be like saying that Syria should bomb all ethnic Russian civilians (or that the Russian government should) simply because there are ethnic Russians that engage in terrorist attacks in Russia and who are fighting jihad in Syria.

The "ethnic Russians" are almost entirely Chechens and other Caucasian peoples. Collective punishment has to apply to a meaningful collective group.

If they derive support from specific families, perhaps it would be reasonable for Israeli forces to burn down or demolish the homes belonging to relatives of Salafist insurgents?

Topic: Israel: Operation Protective Edge - page 12. (Read 14723 times)