Rolling MENA 2014 (Middle East)

also fyi LBI, Marwan Qawasmeh and Amar Abu Aisha are Hamas affiliates. afaik that has not been contradicted by anyone reputable.

Mordy, I don't believe I said Israel is "carpet bombing" Gaza. No need to put words in my mouth. I did say Israel is indiscriminately, randomly bombing Gaza. Get one twitter. Get one Facebook. Deny all you want, innocent people are being targeted here. Because Israel is just bombing away. It isn't a targeted war effort; it is blind retaliation.

I don't have a "preference", this isn't about hoping it is ISIS or Hamas. It is equally terrible, those young boys. But this is now about Israel - again - disproportionally responding to an act of violence.

Facts:
- Israel does not know who kidnapped the three boys
- The Isis cell claimed responsibility (whether true or not)
- Israel (and you, Mordy) regardless hold Hamas accountable. Fine, but where's your evidence?
- Israel starts bombing Gaza out of vengeance and retaliation: not knowing if 'they" are the ones who are responsible, not targeting specific people but just throwing bombs randomly on Gaza.

And you, Mprdy, you defend this. You say Hamas is responsible (while you have no evidence), you say the bombing isn't random because it's against a people under a certain government (as if innocent people aren't killed here! As if all people are to be held responsible for their governments actions. Women? children? Really?) you defend this retaliation bombing.

I'm sorry, but how can you go to sleep at night and defend this bloodthirsty vengeance? How are you ok with people not responsible for kidnapping - children - being killed tonight?

Xp still no evidence. Still speculation. But I see it doesn't bother you to go on a speculative lead and just bomb away.

Going back to Iraqi borders/ISIS, that NYRB article was v patronizing. You can recognise Sykes-Picot et al as indefensible high colonialism w/out having a utopian view of the caliphate. It also seems doubtful that ISIS fail to recognise the longevity of the Sunni/Shia divide

I did say Israel is indiscriminately, randomly bombing Gaza.

JERUSALEM — Israeli aircraft pounded dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip early Tuesday after vowing to extract a heavy price from the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which it accuses of killing three kidnapped Israeli teenagers on the West Bank.

The Israeli air force carried out a “precision strike” against 34 targets in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, the army said. The airstrikes came after more than 20 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza since late Sunday, it said. There were no immediate reports of injuries.

I stand corrected. Still think it's a silly thing to do, especially the 'planning' of more repercussions.

THE FAMOUS "PRECISION STRIKES"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/israel-pounds-dozens-of-targets-in-gaza/2014/07/01/fca1e6cd-822c-4371-9f1c-a1294d495999_story.html

On Thursday, Israel released the names of two suspects it said carried out the kidnappings. Israel said that both men are known Hamas operatives and that both have been missing since the three Israeli youths disappeared.

“Not even one Palestinian faction claimed responsibility for the kidnapping, so why do all the Palestinian people have to suffer?” asked Ziad Abu Ein, a deputy minister for prisoner affairs. The Palestinian Authority controls only 10 percent of the West Bank.

Ziad Abu Ein otm

balls otm

so glad this bombing has made Israel secure at last

WaPo article is p informative regarding how tangled this is; basically just reiterates the point that retaliation just begets more retaliation rinse and repeat ("#avengeourboys" not really a helpful attitude for ex.)

this whole 'launch rockets into sderot,' 'kidnap and kill teenagers,' 'throw rocks at civilians' and then demand that israel not respond bc it will be disproportionate shtick is some grade A bullshit.

seems to be working on you dummies so far

as usual you see the criticism as one-sided. both sides need stop it with the endless recrimination/revenge shit. otherwise it just goes round and round forever.

xp

did it occur to you that this whole incident was engineered to specifically disrupt the peace process oh hey look it's working

Whatever happened to trying to catch the people responsible for the crime?

"Throw rocks at civilians" ffs

the peace process was going swimmingly before this

Oh wait trying to find the ones responsible already killed eight Palestinians...

so you don't think this was specifically engineered to undermine the peace process

xp

Swimmingly lol

what peace process shakey? it had been abandoned before the kidnapping. maybe to undermine the hamas/plo unity government - tho that was mostly posed as a motivation by mondo types for why this was secretly a false flag operation. honestly i don't know what political purpose was served by this. certainly not the peace + stability of the palestinians or the israelis. but since when did 'palestinian resistance' ever actually help a human being?

anyway my point is that the cycle of revenge is endless (weird that Israel hasn't noticed this in the last 60 years). the only way to stop it is for one side to refuse to engage in it anymore and accept whatever consequences come of that as being preferable to an eternal cycle of violence. would be nice if either side could take this step.

xp

I'm goin off the quote in the WaPo article from this guy Mordy:

The family has sometimes operated on the fringes of Hamas, wrote Eldar, who suspects the timing of the kidnappings is too convenient. “Each time Hamas has reached an understanding with Israel about a cease-fire … at least one member of the family has been responsible for planning or initiating a suicide attack, and any understanding with Israel, achieved after considerable effort, were suddenly laid waste,” Eldar said.

but since when did 'palestinian resistance' ever actually help a human being?

probably about as often as "precision bombing"

should note I'm referring to a different WaPo article than the one curmodgeon linked:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/01/the-men-israel-blames-for-the-deaths-of-israeli-teenagers-and-their-violent-family-history/

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/06/qawasmeh-clan-hebron-hamas-leadership-mahmoud-abbas.html#

this would appear to support Hamas' contention that this was not a gov't-sponsored operation but parsing how much of Hamas' operations are top-down activities that are then hidden by misdirection vs. how little they actually control is p difficult. Israel obviously erring on the side of Hamas' being in control, ergo more bombing, which accomplishes... what exactly? More bad blood between the two parties? yeah that's what we need.

islamic jihad has been firing rockets from gaza for weeks (and israel returning fire on launch sites). eldar is being disingenuous by suggesting that this is primarily about the cease fire. much more likely they wanted to undermine the coalition government.

maybe they were frightened that abbas stood a legitimate chance of moderating hamas and they wanted to force hamas back into public radicalism. idk, this is very back of envelope guessing.

I think he's conflating the two; they aren't entirely unrelated

xp

Oh good a revenge killing. Problem solved!

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/world/asia/iraq-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-sermon-video.html

Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip Monday have killed nine Hamas militants. The Israeli military reported the strikes targeted "terror sites and concealed rocket launchers" across Gaza after about 25 rockets were fired into Israel on Sunday. According to the Israeli military, rockets launched from Gaza injured an Israeli soldier on Monday. The increase in attacks has come amid rising tensions over the abduction and killing of three Israeli teenagers and a Palestinian teen. On Sunday, Israeli authorities arrested six Israelis over the suspected revenge killing of Muhammad Abu Khdeir, who is believed to have been burned to death after he was kidnapped. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Palestinian teenager's father Monday expressing outrage over the "reprehensible" murder, vowing to deal with the suspects "to the fullest extent of the law."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4539651,00.html

A report by the BBC shows that Palestinian supporters are using fake images to illustrate the suffering in Gaza.

"Graphic images are being shared on social media to show how people have been affected by the renewed tensions between Israel and the Palestinians," the BBC reported.

"Over the past week the hashtag #GazaUnderAttack has been used hundreds of thousands of times, often to distribute pictures claiming to show the effects of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza."

The hashtag has received 375,000 retweets in eight days.

"A #BBCtrending investigation has found that many of these images are not from the latest conflict and not even from Gaza. Some date as far back as 2009 and others are from conflicts in Syria and Iraq," the report said.

fyi LBI

here's the original BBC link:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28198163

it's just a little bombing, it's still good

it's just a little photo misattribution for propaganda purposes on social media. no biggie, all in service of the cause.

omg there is misinformation on the internet

seems like a minor concern next to actual lives lost but ymmv

lol you're so disingenuous it's gross

considering that the entire scope of the hamas battleplan is to incite israel to damage gaza sufficiently so they can parade photos in front of the arab world and hopefully earn support + marginalize israel further, i think the use of fake photos is entirely relevant to the entire thing. on hamas' side this upcoming conflagration is almost entirely about producing more photos to post on twitter. it's certainly not about dealing an actual military defeat to israel.

ok

what am I being disingenuous about?

hamas battleplan is to incite israel to damage gaza sufficiently so they can parade photos in front of the arab world

Israel only too happy to oblige unfortunately.

that it's somehow excusable or unimportant that fake photos are being used to incite outrage (nb LBI in this very thread)

yes, well, basically the entire southern israel is shut down at the moment bc of constant sirens + rockets. parents on my fb haven't sent their kids to school in days and many are moving up north to be with family. but hey, israel should just ignore hamas.

when has Hamas ever been capable of dealing a military defeat to Israel (and when did I say this was their goal?) Their whole m.o. is to garner Arab pressure against Israel, that's p much the only resource they have.

xp

well the way they do that is by scoring propaganda victories through the use of misattributed photos so i think it's very relevant to the conflict. if you agree w/ that i don't know why you're being so dismissive.

that it's somehow excusable or unimportant that fake photos are being used to incite outrage

given the wealth of shit Israel actually has fomented on Palestinians it does seem p unimportant to me, a minor detail.

parents on my fb haven't sent their kids to school in days and many are moving up north to be with family

I wonder where the Palestinian parents get to send their kids/families

xp

all this boils down to imo is you are cool with bombing people. I am not. sorry if that appears disingenuous.

got it. bc their lives are shit israel shouldn't bother responding to attacks on its territory bc it will make their lives more shit.

yes, i am cool with responding to rocket fire w/ the IDF. i assume that if your home was being targeted by rockets you'd feel the same way, but thank god you don't have to worry about it.