Israel: Operation Protective Edge - page 16.

zolace

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Quote from: Brewins on August 05, 2014, 01:18:46 PM

why every day I see the parts agreed on a 72 hours truce?

Shouldn't it last at least 72 hours?

it should least 72 hours,but is a joke.....they say oh truce for 72 hours or we won't bomb the hospitals,and after 1 hour you hear another gun shut or explosion .....some say "this is war,this things happen in war"....but this a game plan between some rich "kids" with high influence who control the world..

Brewins

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why every day I see the parts agreed on a 72 hours truce?

Shouldn't it last at least 72 hours?

zolace

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How/why are you so well versed in modest politics, noviapriani?

noviapriani

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Quote from: Rigon on August 05, 2014, 01:04:18 PM

Has war officially been claimed here? If not then I don't know how it could be deemed a war crime. Even of war was called it would be difficult.

War crimes don't require official declarations of war, they require conflict. In any case Israel has always had responsibilities with regards to Gaza under the Fourth Geneva Conventions.

Rigon

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Has war officially been claimed here? If not then I don't know how it could be deemed a war crime. Even of war was called it would be difficult.

noviapriani

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I will say this though: It is easier to claim that civilians are militants after the fact than it is to claim that militants are civilians. This is because part of the rituals that go along with fighting generally includes the recognition of sacrifice should they fall in battle (often done through eulogies or the creation of posters and videos about them). It is an expected compensation for their willingness to lay down their lives for their cause, and a major part of militant PR / indoctrination tactics. Thus if militant groups like the Al Qassam Brigade tried to pass off their dead as civilians, it would create significant internal problems for them when it came to the loyalty of their fighters and the sense of community that such groups depend upon.

Rigon

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I am highly skeptical of reports from the conflict zone, and will remain so until further investigation can be done; but, if true that Israel targeted and struck UN schools (and it seems likely that it is), then it could very well constitute a war crime.

sana8410

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Quote from: zolace on August 05, 2014, 12:42:34 PM

Just heard Fareed Zakaria on CNN say that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan have not condemned Israel, which is unprecedented. These countries are more fearful of Islamic extremist groups like Hamas than they are of Israel.

The Egyptian government hates Hamas because of its relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi Arabia dislikes Hamas because it sees it as an Iranian proxy in the area and Saudi Arabia and Iran are locked in a long standing struggle against one another for Middle Eastern dominance.

noviapriani

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We often depend a lot on journalistic reportings, government figures, watchdog groups, and corroboration through investigations after the fact. As far as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes, one of the more thorough and rigorous collectors of such statistics and one not afraid to classify some of the dead as "unknown" if their status can't be verified is the Israeli organization: B'Tselem.

Both sides have incentive to manipulate data. Hamas has incentive to exaggerate the number of civilians dead, while Israel has incentive to label dead civilians as militants.

zolace

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Just heard Fareed Zakaria on CNN say that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan have not condemned Israel, which is unprecedented. These countries are more fearful of Islamic extremist groups like Hamas than they are of Israel.

noviapriani

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Quote from: Rigon on August 05, 2014, 12:29:22 PM

Quote from: noviapriani on August 05, 2014, 12:11:10 PM

This entire escalation of violence is nothing new. It has been pretty predictable and cyclical and it doesn't show much evidence of changing. The unity government was an important step, but it is hard to say how much this current disruption will prevent the unity government from taking future diplomatic action. Netanyahu cracked down on Hamas on purpose (one of the main contributing factors to the resumed fighting) because it was threatened by the unity government, and they have no intention of working with said government even once this fighting is resolved.

The only real difference here is that the international community seems more critical of this current operation than it was of the 2012 and 2009 fighting. Maybe that new pressure will help, but I'm not too hopeful.

Alright, another serious question: what is the methodology of counting the numbers of the dead, and how do they assign them civilian or militant status?

This is difficult in any conflict. Impossible in others. We will never know for example how many people died in the DR Congo conflict, let alone how many were civilian and how many armed. We have some pretty good ideas based on well documented research, but that can only take us so far and in the end is an educated estimate. Likewise, in areas with strong government control against those they fight, we'll almost certainly never fully know how many civilians are killed. Russian soldiers in Dagestan for example tend to shoot up any car they think might be suspicious and then simply declare anyone found dead inside militants without any evidence. Or we invent new categories such as "suspected militants" or in Israel's case just Hamas never mind that Hamas employees could be someone like a civilian who dispenses food at a soup kitchen and has never held a weapon in their lives.

Rigon

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Quote from: noviapriani on August 05, 2014, 12:11:10 PM

This entire escalation of violence is nothing new. It has been pretty predictable and cyclical and it doesn't show much evidence of changing. The unity government was an important step, but it is hard to say how much this current disruption will prevent the unity government from taking future diplomatic action. Netanyahu cracked down on Hamas on purpose (one of the main contributing factors to the resumed fighting) because it was threatened by the unity government, and they have no intention of working with said government even once this fighting is resolved.

The only real difference here is that the international community seems more critical of this current operation than it was of the 2012 and 2009 fighting. Maybe that new pressure will help, but I'm not too hopeful.

Alright, another serious question: what is the methodology of counting the numbers of the dead, and how do they assign them civilian or militant status?

noviapriani

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This entire escalation of violence is nothing new. It has been pretty predictable and cyclical and it doesn't show much evidence of changing. The unity government was an important step, but it is hard to say how much this current disruption will prevent the unity government from taking future diplomatic action. Netanyahu cracked down on Hamas on purpose (one of the main contributing factors to the resumed fighting) because it was threatened by the unity government, and they have no intention of working with said government even once this fighting is resolved.

The only real difference here is that the international community seems more critical of this current operation than it was of the 2012 and 2009 fighting. Maybe that new pressure will help, but I'm not too hopeful.

noviapriani

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Quote from: umair127 on August 05, 2014, 11:00:41 AM

that all seems like cause for hope, no?

I don't find myself very hopeful no. It is nice to see that the trends have stayed the same which means that there is a larger window for opportunity for peace than I had hoped for, but the reality is that conditions within Israeli politics are no where near where they need to be in order for an honest peace process to take place that will lead to some sort of real engagement and results. In fact, they've only gotten worse over time with the rise of conservative parties in Israel, which has afforded them more ease in forming truly conservative coalitions to the point where the current Israeli government under Netanyahu doesn't even pretend to want a two state solution. It isn't their official stance at all. Netanyahu's official stance (which is also Likud's) is permanent occupation, and among his coalition that stance is one of the more moderate ones.

umair127

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that all seems like cause for hope, no?

noviapriani

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Ah, clicking on the data sets, I see there are other pictures, and there you can clearly see the desire for resistance among Gazans (expressed here as non-violent resistance) but not necessarily for conflict or the use of Qassam rockets. there tends to be Palestinian dissatisfaction over the issue of resistance, with Hamas engaging in unpopular rocket attacks and being seen as too violent, while Abbas can be seen as not resistant enough and too compliant with Israel to the point of being considered by some to be an Israeli puppet (not my opinion). The data also shows both safety concerns and corruption as key issues for Palestinians as well, which, as I said, was Hamas' main selling point in the last elections. Overall though, Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip was never supported by a majority of either Palestinians or Gazans.

Rigon

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Quote from: noviapriani on August 05, 2014, 10:09:43 AM

Quote from: umair127 on August 05, 2014, 10:06:39 AM

what do you think of this? http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/p...ants-ceasefire regardless of the source, do these numbers seem reasonable for you?

It's tough for me to tell. Data is always hard to authenticate from Gaza and I haven't been as actively focused on the area as I have in the past. That being said, these numbers are pretty close to what they were back in 2006 with Hamas' takeover of the strip, and back in 2009 during Operation Cast Lead. So they match up with historical polling trends for Gaza's population.

Palestinians in general, but more specifically for this case Gazans have long been predominately against Hamas' use of rockets to attack Israel. Where Hamas has received popular support among Palestinians is not in their terrorist activities, but largely through their provision of social services, the imagery that they were less corrupt than Fatah had been under Arafat, and their assertion that the recognition of Israel should be part of a peace process rather than a precondition to peace talks. These have always been Hamas' main selling points.

Though at the same time, while Hamas' attacks are seen as unwanted, the idea of them resisting Israeli domination over them vocally can be supported. The longer the conflict goes on the more I fear that support will increase for Hamas. In fact, if these numbers are true then things haven't shifted as much towards violence as I had feared in terms of public opinion (Then again this isn't taking into account West Bank attitudes). Overall though, Hamas has pretty much had a generally negative approval rating in the Strip for years. The civil war was very divisive.

noviapriani

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Quote from: umair127 on August 05, 2014, 10:06:39 AM

what do you think of this? http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/p...ants-ceasefire regardless of the source, do these numbers seem reasonable for you?

It's tough for me to tell. Data is always hard to authenticate from Gaza and I haven't been as actively focused on the area as I have in the past. That being said, these numbers are pretty close to what they were back in 2006 with Hamas' takeover of the strip, and back in 2009 during Operation Cast Lead. So they match up with historical polling trends for Gaza's population.

Palestinians in general, but more specifically for this case Gazans have long been predominately against Hamas' use of rockets to attack Israel. Where Hamas has received popular support among Palestinians is not in their terrorist activities, but largely through their provision of social services, the imagery that they were less corrupt than Fatah had been under Arafat, and their assertion that the recognition of Israel should be part of a peace process rather than a precondition to peace talks. These have always been Hamas' main selling points.

umair127

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what do you think of this? http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/p...ants-ceasefire regardless of the source, do these numbers seem reasonable for you?

kuroman

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Quote from: Robert Paulson on July 28, 2014, 12:28:30 PM

Quote from: noviapriani on July 28, 2014, 12:25:09 PM

Quote from: zolace on July 28, 2014, 12:13:43 PM

Quote from: umair127 on July 25, 2014, 09:47:17 AM

Quote from: zolace on July 23, 2014, 10:36:15 AM

Quote

Seems a bit disingenuous to compare a formal war with an insurgency and terrorist related violence. The two aren't fought in the same way. Nor are they fought with the same weapons. You're stuck on WWII but it isn't the 40's anymore.

Not really. You can fight an insurgency with the same weapons one would use in a conventional war. Russia did so quite nicely in Chechnya by using massive conventional firepower on Grozny and other insurgent-held, civilian-populated targets. Indeed, the sheer indiscriminate nature, destruction, and terror imposed on the civilian population helps to deter their resistance.

I’d suggest the fact that the Allies demonstrated a pretty clear resolve that killing civilians to achieve victory was acceptable is the entire reason why World War II was so successful while Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were not. Perhaps if America had opened up the war by turning Kandahar into a firestorm like Dresden, it would have sent a clearer message of what the price of attacking America is.

That worked out well for him didn't it? Considering he's dead and all and a Shia government is now in power in Iraq. And yet it is still unstable and isolated to this day. Good work

The North Caucasus was perfectly stable after Stalin deported all the Chechens to Siberia. Letting them back was a mistake. Compared to the US, Russia did much better in Afghanistan as well.
It only took a US invasion to do it, but hey, clear failure, right?
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. As long as the US supports Israel, I don't really see them failing. They have survived this long.

When the US supported long term blitzing of Vietnam, eventually the wee viet-com fellas in tunnels routed the US outta Vietnam with heavy US losses.

When the US occupied Afghanistan for too long it was time to go, allowing the taliban easy access back in.

When the US bombed Iraq senseless and installed a police /troops operation and then left, the insurgents were soon to come back in.

Whatever crazy level of funding the US has given the jews in Israel, eventually from the way the crazy jew is acting in Israel, completely disproportionate in their killing of palestinians, they too are going to fail and will either get nuked or ensconced in too many battles they can't win, upsetting too many arabs.

they already fought all their Arab neighbors simultaneously and beat them, and that's 50 years ago before they had nukes and the unconditional support of the united states.
it ain't happening, not in our lifetime.

well to be fair it wasn't that hard to be the Arab, as they were fighting each other and never had strong collaboration (and they still to this day and age and most of the conflict is due to borders after Independence), not to mention the strong American and French and UK, intelligence and armament giving by them

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