Would you bomb a school?

[JLM]

Israel deliberately shelled a girls school today killing and injuring about 100 civilians (mostly children). They don't claim it was an accident. In fact they admit it was deliberate.

Israel stated the school wasn't being used as a school at the time. Absolutely true. It was being used as a shelter for children. Classes are cancelled right now in Gaza.

They claim they believed they had been fired upon from the school. But in the resulting carnage, they only found civilians. Not a single militant was among the dead and wounded.

Is this a terrorist act? Is war crime too strong?




Would you bomb a school?
YouTube - Would You Bomb A School?

Let's recap here. Israel and Hamas had a ceasefire which lasted for 4 months until Israel sent commandos into Gaza and killed several Hamas members. Hamas responded with their ineffective rockets which harmlessly made some crators in the desert. Israel responds with assassinations and a blockade of international humanitarian food and medical aid... effectively using food as a weapon. Israel continues assassinating Hamas members, Hamas keeps responding to each assassination with a barrage of rockets. After two months of this tit-for-tat, which resulted in numerous Palestinian deaths but not a single Israeli death, Israel launches a full out assault on Gaza, which is about half the size and twice the population density of Toronto. It is surrouned by walls so the civilians living there have no where to run or hide in the event of war. Israel started the battle by sending wave after wave of bombers, followed by artillery barrages and then a ground invasion of tanks, and infantry. As the two sides exchange machine gun and mortar fire, inevitably civlians have been caught in the crossfire. Nows its degraded to the point where Israel has started shelling schools, knowing they are full of children because they think Hamas militants might be hiding there.

Would the Israeli apologists care to go on the record and defend this callous cold blooded act?

Just as likely as I'd strap a bomb to myself and walk into the school blow everyone up. Why would you address a question like this to at least half ways normal people? Those people in the middle east are a bunch of raving lunatics (probably not all, but the majority), even the milder ones are very arrogant and domineering.

 

[earth_as_one]

No, now the UN, the victims, are claiming it was a mistake. Israel has not said anything, though they may soon.

First Israel's spin doctor's claimed militants were in the school. Now they are saying "in the immediate vicinity" of the school. But Chris Gunness of UNRWA challenged Israel or anyone to bring forward evidence which supports any Israeli version. He also points out that Israel is using old stock footage to prop up their lie (Which I've seen and has been identified as an abandoned school taken over by Hamas).

Here is the video:
YouTube - CNN-Israeli Foreign Minister caught lying about Gaza

 

[darkbeaver]

Next contest in these Forums is to guess how many times Colpy has repeated this. Is it a chant or something?

I'd say six-hundred and sixty-six times.

 

[earth_as_one]

Just as likely as I'd strap a bomb to myself and walk into the school blow everyone up. Why would you address a question like this to at least half ways normal people? Those people in the middle east are a bunch of raving lunatics (probably not all, but the majority), even the milder ones are very arrogant and domineering.

The people in the middle east are human like us. We aren't as different from them as you think.

"Would you bomb a school?"

Yep...Then I'ld bomb it again or look for another one to lob some hot rounds on. But then again, I'm not naive enough to believe everything the Hamas media machine spins out.

 

[justfred]

I see on the reports that 777 Palistenians have been killed in 2 weeks. If the Isrealis keep going at this slow rate of killing, it will take another 232 years to kill them all. Get with the program and start doing it right. If the information given is true, only like 20 or 30, then the killing rate is only 31-1 (Palistenians/Isrealis) Mind you, (us) the Palistenians can make some more for the Isrealis to kill tonight.

 

[Scott Free]

Funny, I went down to Tyendinaga all the time and the people were friendly. I didn't worry about rockets falling on my head.

Oh, I get it, you're a racist.

 

[L Gilbert]

I'm an ex racist. Used to be pretty quick in the 100 and the long distances. Not so good in the medium distances, though.

Really, at this point of the game it is silly to afix blame on one side or the other. The who-hit-who-first thing is childish. The fact that both sides constantly provoke each other will continue and is equally childish. Pollitics is mostly childish.

 

[JLM]

I'm an ex racist. Used to be pretty quick in the 100 and the long distances. Not so good in the medium distances, though.

Really, at this point of the game it is silly to afix blame on one side or the other. The who-hit-who-first thing is childish. The fact that both sides constantly provoke each other will continue and is equally childish. Pollitics is mostly childish.

Right on L.Gilbert but I'd even go one step further and say "politics is mostly criminal" (Look at the sh*t that's going to be hitting fan over the 2010 charade)

 

[Scott Free]

I'm an ex racist. Used to be pretty quick in the 100 and the long distances. Not so good in the medium distances, though.

Really, at this point of the game it is silly to afix blame on one side or the other. The who-hit-who-first thing is childish. The fact that both sides constantly provoke each other will continue and is equally childish. Pollitics is mostly childish.

That wasn't my meaning. I wasn't pointing out blame but found an explination of how someone could accept concentration camps, death ratios of 1:100 (mostly women and children as usual), the miss treatment of Native Americans and their subsequent acquiescence and etc, as positives. I am of the opinion that such a bias is only possible if someone holds racist tendencies.

 

[Just the Facts]

So what would you do if someone took your land, bulldozed your 1000 year old orchard and moved you onto a tiny plot of land? Throw flowers at their feet?

We moved.

 

[Zzarchov]

I keep hearing death ratios.

Since when is death ratios important?

Equal death ratio's would show pointless eye for an eye vengeance.

Force should only be applied if something can be achieved, if that requires a death toll of a million to one, fine. If force can't change anything, don't apply any.

Proportionate response should be a war crime, its murder.

 

[earth_as_one]

Technically killing about 300 people in response to 0 deaths isn't a ratio.

 

[Zzarchov]

Technically killing about 300 people in response to 0 deaths isn't a ratio.

no, it would still be a ratio.

But it still stands, what does any ratio matter?

if you want ratios, a few thousand cases of attempted murder of civilians, versus a few hundred attempts on militants.


Would you prefer Israel fired their own crude unguided rockets back into gaza on a 1:1 ratio, would that be better to you/

 

[lone wolf]

no, it would still be a ratio.

But it still stands, what does any ratio matter?

if you want ratios, a few thousand cases of attempted murder of civilians, versus a few hundred attempts on militants.


Would you prefer Israel fired their own crude unguided rockets back into gaza on a 1:1 ratio, would that be better to you/

I'd prefer Israel and Hamas both fire all their rockets about two degrees west of straight up (four if it's windy)

 

[earth_as_one]

Try dividing 300 by 0 on your calculator and see what you get. 300 to 0 technically isn't a ratio, because its not a real number.

Division by zero - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Actually from the time Israel and Hamas agreed to a truce in June 2008 until Israel unilaterally broke the truce on November 4, 2008, precisely 12 rockets and 14 mortars were fired by criminal elements in Gaza and resulted in no deaths.

But they did result in arrests.

10/07/2008

Hamas arrests Gaza rocket squad after two Qassams hit Negev

By Haaretz Service and News Agencies

Tags: Hamas, Israel, cease-fire

Hamas arrested three Palestinians who fired rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip on Thursday, a militant faction said, in the first such detentions since the Islamist group and Israel agreed on a cease-fire last month.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militant offshoot of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction, said Hamas men pursued its members after the attack and "abducted them" in Jabalya refugee camp...

Hamas arrests Gaza rocket squad after two Qassams hit Negev - Haaretz - Israel News

The upsurge in November came after Israel broke the truce by invading Gaza and killing Hamas members. It could also be argued that Israel never met its ceasefire obligations because they failed to open Gaza up to the free flow of food and medicine.



From a legal standpoint, using food as a weapon is a war crime.

But Israel has crossed that line repeatedly in this war:

U.N. wants to know if war crimes were committed in Gaza

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The U.N. high commissioner for human rights Friday called for an investigation of possible Israeli war crimes in Gaza as local residents told more gruesome tales about Israeli troops neglecting wounded civilians and the killing of unarmed Palestinians.

High Commissioner Navi Pillay noted the case of four boys who were rescued Wednesday by the International Committee of the Red Cross from the side of their dead mother in a dwelling 100 yards from an Israeli military post. The Red Cross called the incident "shocking," and Pillay told the BBC that it "had all the elements of what constitutes a war crime."

Eyewitnesses interviewed by McClatchy correspondents, along with Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups, described gruesome scenes in and near Gaza City.

Among them: the charred remains of a toddler that had been partially devoured by wild animals, reported by the Red Cross; and an infant bleeding to death in his mother's arms, reported to a McClatchy special correspondent; and an unarmed man allegedly shot dead by an Israeli soldier in front of his family, reported by a relative who spoke to a McClatchy special correspondent and a witness who was interviewed by an Israeli human rights group....

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 01/09/2009 | U.N. wants to know if war crimes were committed in Gaza

 

[Zzarchov]

Oh, I get it, you're a racist.

How on earth exactly am I a racist by this logic. I would love to hear this line of thinking of yours.

Go on, lay it all out.

 

[Zzarchov]

EAO,

Until Israel suspends UN aid shipments, a blockade is not a warcrime. Israel never told the UN to stop bringing food, and there has yet to be any starvation in Gaza. Whether the blockade is right or wrong morally, fine argue all you want, but there is no warcrime going on under any definition resulting to the blockade. Fact, and not disputable if one uses logic rather than appeals to emotion.

If Israel was using food as a weapon, then they would have won already.

I also see no point to you attempt to use emotional appeal to describe and show dead children. Quite frankly that is how all dead are, horrid and mangled cases that are sickening to describe. Do you not know what the results of "symbollic rocket strikes" are when they hit?

Bye Grandma, looks like you won't need that walker anymore!

This is why people don't like to take the chance of "Symbollic Rockets" hitting their kids schoolbus.

Thankfully they spend quite a bit on medicine. I understand its confusing.


There is alot of tension between the UN and Israel. Part of the problem is the UN sees no problem with have militants who are in a state of war with Israel being used as observers of the conflict and being put in charge of overseeing incoming supplies.

CBC, 2004 ,
Peter Hansen, head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), has acknowledged that some of Unrwa's 24,000 Palestinian employees were probably members of militant groups but he did not see that as a crime

There are alot of legitimate points you can argue, im not going to bother describing right from wrong, but if your point is the correct one you don't need to fudge points. Rocket strikes are not just symbollic anymore than this invasion of Gaza is symbollic (Which in the end, it is Symbollic), they can maim large numbers of people and are a warcrime according to Palestinians.

The UN is not a neutral organization in Israel according to the UN itself.

 

[einmensch]

Israel is always justified in their actions. First they were fired upon by Hamas militants from the school. When that turned out to be a lie then the militants were outside the school and by accident a mortar hit the school. If they give Nobel Prizes for lying Israel should be a yearly recipient.

 

[MissAnnika]

no i wouldn't bomb a school, they r just little kids, and after all, the children are our future, teach them well and........idk the rest

 

[Scott Free]

How on earth exactly am I a racist by this logic. I would love to hear this line of thinking of yours.

Go on, lay it all out.

You have expressed feelings of entitlement that can only be derived from a sense of superiority. It is impossible for you to understand what I mean - a natural condition of your affliction; which is why I say it is pointless arguing with a racist.