WayOfTheDodo wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:And again, even after WW 2, the Allies did not build ever more colonies in Germany, did not shoot or otherwise kill innocent civilians, did not prevent crititcal goods from reaching the German population.

Actually, Germany had to give up on areas of land after WW2. Land was taken from Germany because they lost the war they started.

They had to return land to other countries.
There was no continued colony building after the peace was signed.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:And yes, the allies did kill innocent civilian Germans during the war (and Israel and Palestine are at war right now).

Except they really aren't.
Israel takes no step to defeat the Palestinians nor have they called in their allies in this supposed war.

WayOfTheDodo wrote: Civilians die during war. It's inevitable. However, Israel tries very hard to avoid civilian casualties on both sides.

Except they really don't as has been demonstrated in this thread.
Nor is shooting at unarmed protesters trying your best to avoid civilian casualties.

WayOfTheDodo wrote: The rate of civilian deaths is far lower in, say, the Gaza wars, than in other wars. And that is despinte Hamas' active war crime of using its own civilians as human shields in order to fend off attacks against military targets in Gaza.

And now we're onto playing disgusting number games.
It matters fuck all if there are less civilian deaths than in other wars, when deaths are avoidable.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:I guess it's only wrong when Jews take land they won during war, fair and square.

Nope, you can stuff that asinine straw-man back in the hole it came from.
Nor is the situation what you keep asserting it is.

WayOfTheDodo wrote: I guess it's only wrong when Jews return fire when attacked. Everyone else is free to do all these things, but not Jews. Oh no.

Why am I not surprised that in a threat about Israel, the only way for you to address people with a different viewpoint from yours, is to fabricate straw-men?

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Should refrain sounds so civilized when the activity in question is the half century of systematic hostile occupation.

Sigh. The occupation is a defensive measure.

Bullshit.
There's no need to prevent the import of medicine and other such necessary goods.
Building colonies is not a defensive measure either.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:If they really were engaged in warfare, they'd defeat Hamas and fully occupy, to end the war, as well as drastically reduce their ability to fire rockets.

That was Israel's mistake, you see. They did the opposite: They ended the occupation of Gaza and pulled out completely. That was when the rockets really started coming.

The fucked up. They should have kept the occupation going.

And yet they still don't do anything to actually end this fantastical war you keep asserting they're in.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

More-over it's called a proportionate response for a reason.

What do you mean?

That Arjan Dirkse advocated disproportionate violence/response.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

And yes there are civilian casualties, but there are in any war.

Again if Israel is at war, they're doing a pretty shitty job, also where are their allies in this war?
More-over, shooting unarmed protestors and arresting said protestors without charge or representation, are all unjustifiable.

Why is Israel doing a shitty job?

Because they don't actually do anything to end this fantastical war.
They don't fully occupy Gaza, they don't depose the government they're at war with or force them to sign a lasting peace treaty.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:Because they are showing amazing restraint, often not even responding when rockets are fired a their civilians?

Except they don't do that at all.
That you can post such horse-shit with a straight face is once again a demonstration of your one-sided bias with regards to this conflict.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:What other government on the planet would survive if they sat and did nothing as rockets were fired on their civilians, as the Israeli government has done lots of times?

Do you think the US would act the way Israel has been behaving if Mexico was firing rockets at them and they were supposedly in a war with each other?
No, they'd invade and either depose the Mexican government or force them to sign peace.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:And what unarmed protesters were shot? Got a couple of specific examples? (No need to spam with dozens of claims. I need to be able to actually look at the examples to verify them.)

Given your track record of either blind dismissal or dismissal based on ad-hom I highly doubt you will bother to verify it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beitunia_killings
http://www.wrmea.org/2009-may-june/friends-rally-for-tristan-anderson-protest-israeli-shooting-of-activist.html

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Israel's actions are what paints it in a bad light.

Yes, those damn Israelis and their ability to defend themselves instead of just fucking dying already.

Oh look a straw-man, what a surprise....

No, it's a sarcastic remark pointing out that Israel's actions are a result of it constantly being under attack. It's defending itself.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Should refrain sounds so civilized when the activity in question is the half century of systematic hostile occupation.

Sigh. The occupation is a defensive measure.

Bullshit.
There's no need to prevent the import of medicine and other such necessary goods.
Building colonies is not a defensive measure either.

There's a need to strictly control what goes in to Gaza. For example, Israel made the mistake of allowing concrete into Gaza. What happened? Hamas used the concrete given to Gaza by Israel to build tunnels into Israel that they were going to use to enter Israeli territory and slaughter Jews.

Building colonies?

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:And again, even after WW 2, the Allies did not build ever more colonies in Germany, did not shoot or otherwise kill innocent civilians, did not prevent crititcal goods from reaching the German population.

Actually, Germany had to give up on areas of land after WW2. Land was taken from Germany because they lost the war they started.

They had to return land to other countries.
There was no continued colony building after the peace was signed.

No peace has been signed in the Middle East.

And Germany didn't return all land. For example, the areas handed over to Poland originally belonged to Germany before WWI. They then had to give it up after that war. Took it back during WWII, and were then forced to hand it over again.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:And yes, the allies did kill innocent civilian Germans during the war (and Israel and Palestine are at war right now).

Except they really aren't.
Israel takes no step to defeat the Palestinians nor have they called in their allies in this supposed war.

I have no idea what you are trying to say. Whenever Israel does try to defeat the enemy there's a huge outcry across the world. How dare Israel respond to attacks from its enemy!

WayOfTheDodo wrote:Civilians die during war. It's inevitable. However, Israel tries very hard to avoid civilian casualties on both sides.

Except they really don't as has been demonstrated in this thread.
Nor is shooting at unarmed protesters trying your best to avoid civilian casualties.

Actually, they do. How has this thread demonstrated otherwise? The numbers from Hamas itself during the latest fight in Gaza clearly shows young men of fighting age overrepresented, while women and children are vastly underrepresented among the dead. Had civilians been targeted or Israel hadn't done anything to avoid civilian casualties, one would expect the rate of dead women and children to be roughly the same as the rate of women and children in Gaza in total.

What do you mean "shooting at unarmed protesters"?

WayOfTheDodo wrote:The rate of civilian deaths is far lower in, say, the Gaza wars, than in other wars. And that is despinte Hamas' active war crime of using its own civilians as human shields in order to fend off attacks against military targets in Gaza.

And now we're onto playing disgusting number games.
It matters fuck all if there are less civilian deaths than in other wars, when deaths are avoidable.

Civilian deaths are not avoidable during war, especially when the enemy is actively trying to get his own civilians killed by doing things like hiding secondary explosives in the areas around military targets that go off when the actual military target is hit, thus killing even more civilians.

Israel is faced with an enemy which will happily kill its own civilians to win the PR war.

Despite this, civilian casualties are low compared to other wars. It's not a numbers game. It's a fact.

WayOfTheDodo wrote: I guess it's only wrong when Jews return fire when attacked. Everyone else is free to do all these things, but not Jews. Oh no.

Why am I not surprised that in a threat about Israel, the only way for you to address people with a different viewpoint from yours, is to fabricate straw-men?

So why is it that Israel is being criticized for doing what everyone else is doing, but people like you aren't giving a fuck unless Israel is involved?

maybe if they where more careful instead of defending the shit out of people they would not be constantly under attack.
but being under attack is not a bug, it's a feature for the Israeli government.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Israel's actions are what paints it in a bad light.

Yes, those damn Israelis and their ability to defend themselves instead of just fucking dying already.

Ummm... Palestinians?

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

DarthHelmet86 wrote:If the Australian situation was anything like the current Israel one I would fully support Australia pissing off back to the land assigned to them and to an enforcement of stopping settlers setting up in land that they shouldn't be in.

As it isn't the same situation it is a stupid thing to bring up really. I do support Aboriginal lands being protected, their culture being protected and that Australia shouldn't go invading the countries around us or holding land after a war. Oh and most of my ancestors didn't choose to come to Australia either.

Why should Arabs be able to settle on available land in disputed areas, but not Jews? Why should Jewish families not be allowed to return to the properties they were ethincally cleansed from on the West Bank in the 40s?

It was Israel they attempted to invade. Israel was forced to respond and defend itself. They didn't even want to touch the West Bank until they were forced to occupy it in order to stop the constant attacks from the area.

Stop fucking attacking Israel, and the war ends.

You don't history, do you?

I...wow.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:If they really were engaged in warfare, they'd defeat Hamas and fully occupy, to end the war, as well as drastically reduce their ability to fire rockets.

That was Israel's mistake, you see. They did the opposite: They ended the occupation of Gaza and pulled out completely. That was when the rockets really started coming.

The fucked up. They should have kept the occupation going.

And yet they still don't do anything to actually end this fantastical war you keep asserting they're in.

What are they supposed to do to end the war? Whenever they do anything to defend themselves people like you go completely insane about it.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

More-over it's called a proportionate response for a reason.

What do you mean?

That Arjan Dirkse advocated disproportionate violence/response.

I see. I thought you were repeating the lie that Israel's actual response to attack is disproportionate.

Attacking civilians is never OK.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

And yes there are civilian casualties, but there are in any war.

Again if Israel is at war, they're doing a pretty shitty job, also where are their allies in this war?
More-over, shooting unarmed protestors and arresting said protestors without charge or representation, are all unjustifiable.

Why is Israel doing a shitty job?

Because they don't actually do anything to end this fantastical war.
They don't fully occupy Gaza, they don't depose the government they're at war with or force them to sign a lasting peace treaty.

How on earth are they going to force Hamas, who wants to kill all Jews, to sign a peace treaty?

They probably should occupy Gaza again. It seems clear that ending the occupation of Gaza was a huge mistake. All they got in return was rockets launched at Israeli civilians. Israel was eventually forced to set up a military blockade a couple of years after the occupation of Gaza ended.

I don't know why they didn't just re-occupy the area.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:Because they are showing amazing restraint, often not even responding when rockets are fired a their civilians?

Except they don't do that at all.
That you can post such horse-shit with a straight face is once again a demonstration of your one-sided bias with regards to this conflict.

The facts are on the table: The rate of civilian deaths during the fighting in Gaza is very low. Had Israel not shown restraint, you wouldn't see tactics like this being used:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6162494.stm

During the latest Gaza war, women and children were vastly underrepresented among the dead if you compared it to the overall population. Young men were overrepresented. Clear proof that civilian casualties were low. Had civilian casualties been high, the rate of dead women and children would have reflected the overall population.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:What other government on the planet would survive if they sat and did nothing as rockets were fired on their civilians, as the Israeli government has done lots of times?

Do you think the US would act the way Israel has been behaving if Mexico was firing rockets at them and they were supposedly in a war with each other?
No, they'd invade and either depose the Mexican government or force them to sign peace.

Erm, do you live on this planet? The US wars in the Middle East? Vietnam? And so on. They have tried that. Doesn't exactly seem to be that easy.

You can't force an enemy whose only goal in life is to wipe you out to sign a peace treaty.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:And what unarmed protesters were shot? Got a couple of specific examples? (No need to spam with dozens of claims. I need to be able to actually look at the examples to verify them.)

Given your track record of either blind dismissal or dismissal based on ad-hom I highly doubt you will bother to verify it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beitunia_killings
http://www.wrmea.org/2009-may-june/friends-rally-for-tristan-anderson-protest-israeli-shooting-of-activist.html

The first link shows a case where the soldier was arrested for the killing the guy. Besides, according to Wikipedia, he was throwring rocks. Not exactly an innocent, peaceful protester then. If some idiot was trying to bash my head in with rocks and I had a gun, I would probably have shot him too.

The second link shows a case where he was apparently hit in the head with a tear gas canister.

Not exactly good examples because the first shows that the guy wasn't exactly innocent (and the soldier was arrested), and the second isn't really relevant because it seems more of a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time as IDF was using tear gast to disperse a mob or something.

Spearthrower wrote:

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Israel's actions are what paints it in a bad light.

Yes, those damn Israelis and their ability to defend themselves instead of just fucking dying already.

Ummm... Palestinians?

What?

Spearthrower wrote:

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

DarthHelmet86 wrote:If the Australian situation was anything like the current Israel one I would fully support Australia pissing off back to the land assigned to them and to an enforcement of stopping settlers setting up in land that they shouldn't be in.

As it isn't the same situation it is a stupid thing to bring up really. I do support Aboriginal lands being protected, their culture being protected and that Australia shouldn't go invading the countries around us or holding land after a war. Oh and most of my ancestors didn't choose to come to Australia either.

Why should Arabs be able to settle on available land in disputed areas, but not Jews? Why should Jewish families not be allowed to return to the properties they were ethincally cleansed from on the West Bank in the 40s?

It was Israel they attempted to invade. Israel was forced to respond and defend itself. They didn't even want to touch the West Bank until they were forced to occupy it in order to stop the constant attacks from the area.

Stop fucking attacking Israel, and the war ends.

You don't history, do you?

Please be more specific.

Do you actually have something specific and relevant to add, or are you just going to keep posting nonsensical one-liners?

WayOfTheDodo wrote:
What are they supposed to do to end the war? Whenever they do anything to defend themselves people like you go completely insane about it.

And of course, in Fantasy Land, it's the Palestinians who are attacking, and the Israelis who are defending, and Palestinians can just die like good little brown people - they certainly shouldn't be defending themselves because that's just outright provocative.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

Thomas Eshuis wrote:

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:Israel's actions are what paints it in a bad light.

Yes, those damn Israelis and their ability to defend themselves instead of just fucking dying already.

Oh look a straw-man, what a surprise....

No, it's a sarcastic remark pointing out that Israel's actions are a result of it constantly being under attack. It's defending itself.

Ah, so it's a recitation of fantasy, why didn't you say so.

Since you, as usual when this topic is involved, can't help but poison the well and attack straw-men, I'm not going to bother to engage any further until you can confine yourself to adressing what I post.
tl:dr: stop making up your interlocutors positions.

Have to agree with Fallible by the way, both the cherry-picking of facts and feats of mental gymnastics being performed here are astounding.

Thomas Eshuis wrote:Have to agree with Fallible by the way, both the cherry-picking of facts and feats of mental gymnastics being performed here are astounding.

What cherry-picking of facts?

The mental gymnastics is entirely on your part. Your claims about civilian casualties, for example, are refuted by Hamas' own figures.

Spearthrower wrote:

WayOfTheDodo wrote:What are they supposed to do to end the war? Whenever they do anything to defend themselves people like you go completely insane about it.

And of course, in Fantasy Land, it's the Palestinians who are attacking, and the Israelis who are defending, and Palestinians can just die like good little brown people - they certainly shouldn't be defending themselves because that's just outright provocative.

So your definition of "self defense" is launching rockets at civilians? You do realize that the only reason Israel does anything in Gaza in the first place is as a response to rocket attacks, right?

As for "brown people", there are more of them in Israel than in the Palestinian Territories. In fact, I believe Gaza consists of something like 99.9% Arab Muslims or so.

Now, what did you mean by "Ummm... Palestinians?"? What history were you referring to?

You know, the way you are completely evading my comments and instead resorting to lame non-arguments like the one I'm quoting here reminds me a lot about how creationists and climate deniers operate. And similar to how the behavior of climate deniers showed me that they must be wrong back when I was on the fence, the behavior of Israel-bashers showed me that they must be wrong. I actually used to be an Israel-basher myself back when I was ignorant. But the more I looked into the matter, the more lies I uncovered about Israel and the situation over there.

So hey, keep evading the actual topic and keep behaving like creationists and climate deniers do. It's your choice.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

WayOfTheDodo wrote:What are they supposed to do to end the war? Whenever they do anything to defend themselves people like you go completely insane about it.

And of course, in Fantasy Land, it's the Palestinians who are attacking, and the Israelis who are defending, and Palestinians can just die like good little brown people - they certainly shouldn't be defending themselves because that's just outright provocative.

So your definition of "self defense" is launching rockets at civilians?

No, I was mocking your cretinous drivel.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:You do realize that the only reason Israel does anything in Gaza in the first place is as a response to rocket attacks, right?

Yeah of course! Because Israel hadn't occupied the land in wars, forcibly settled Jewish Israelis in lands previously occupied by Palestinians, or done anything remotely bad to the populace. They are, after all, completely innocent angels.

Ok, I've finished toking - who should I pass to next?

WayOfTheDodo wrote:As for "brown people", there are more of them in Israel than in the Palestinian Territories. In fact, I believe Gaza consists of something like 99.9% Arab Muslims or so.

Hilariously clueless. Walk yourself through it WOTD - how did these Arab Muslims come to be within the borders of Israel in the first place?

WayOfTheDodo wrote:Now, what did you mean by "Ummm... Palestinians?"? What history were you referring to?

That history of recorded events that transpired prior to now. Not the history where you just make up whatever you fancy or ignore factors which are inconvenient to your position.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:You know, the way you are completely evading my comments and instead resorting to lame non-arguments like the one I'm quoting here reminds me a lot about how creationists and climate deniers operate.

Which is even more amusing considering the post above was my first reply to you, but now it's become a 'way', as if we've just held a long and detailed conversation.

However, you appear to have this arse about tit as well. Creationists and Climate Deniers think that their assertions should be lent undue credence simply because they have written a grammatically intelligible sentence. When challenged, they start lashing out ineffectually, causing much hilarity in the audience.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:And similar to how the behavior of climate deniers showed me that they must be wrong back when I was on the fence, the behavior of Israel-bashers showed me that they must be wrong.

Given your capacity to reason as presented so far, I am not surprised that you find genetic fallacies to be highly persuasive discourse.

WayOfTheDodo wrote: I actually used to be an Israel-basher myself back when I was ignorant. But the more I looked into the matter, the more lies I uncovered about Israel and the situation over there.

And your sources were, of course, undisclosable - instead, we are to simply genuflect intellectually to the force of your assertions.

Incidentally, criticizing Israeli policy is not 'Israel-bashing' - but I do so appreciate your transparent attempts to poison the well.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:So hey, keep evading the actual topic and keep behaving like creationists and climate deniers do. It's your choice.

/point and laugh

Bring something more persuasive to the table than the forceful insistence of your own authority, and perhaps you won't be taken as completely ignorant, abjectly clueless, and childishly hostile to cover over your discursive failings.

WayOfTheDodo wrote:Stop fucking attacking Israel, and the war ends.

Stop occupying Palestine and the war ends.

An occupying power - that is Israel in this case - has no place whatsoever insisting the people they are occupying cease their resistance.