Senate approves funding for Israel’s Iron Dome

Now we're paying a quarter of a billion dollars to directly fund a country that's killed over 1,200 civilians in the last month?

What. The. Hell.

Because not doing so would be anti-semitism.

Hamas is the one that put civilians in harm's way, encouraging/forcing civilians to ignore evacuation warnings from IDF while they store weapons in and launch them from civilian sites, fire indiscriminately at civilian/military targets, kill their own country's people with misfires, etc. Is Israel really expected to put up with endless rockets fired at it and having insurgents build and use tunnels to stock supplies and mount attacks against it?

I really can't see how people think that criticism of Israel is the same thing as an endorsement of Hamas. Hamas is a bunch of monsters. But that doesn't give Israel the right to be monsters, or exemption from criticism when they behave like monsters.

Israel is supposed to be the "good guy." Right? We'll, they're using children as human shields too.

If the United States of America used children as human-shields, we'd be in extremely big trouble. If we found some of our soldiers doing it, it would be an international outrage and those soldiers would spend their lives in prison. But when Israel does it, it's okay, because they're the victims, right?

If Canada, Finland, Germany, or any other civilized country blocked humanitarian aid to civilians, they'd be called monsters right? But hey, it's Israel, and they're the victims in all this, so it's okay.

So let me be clear. My problem is not "Israel." My problem has no allegiance to any country or any label. My problem is that innocent men, women, and children who have never held a gun in their life are being killed... and then worse, the world is treating their deaths as reasonable. And that disgusts me.

If a single one of those deaths was an American citizen, the world would be at arms. But because those people are not aligned with a powerful country, they're worthless collateral. Meaningless dirt people.

The use of human shields is Hamas' regular MO. IDF forbids it, and I really don't see that article cites any proof that it happens anywhere outside of rare occurrences. IDF will often cancel air strikes when they find civilians/children there, but nobody really believes Hamas would extend the same courtesy. IDF is stuck between the options of not fighting back and being destroyed, or fighting back even though Hamas surrounds themselves with children at all times just to make Israel look bad. Self preservation is more important than taking the hits and not retaliating just to avoid Hamas' PR trap. If IDF had a feasible way to destroy all insurgents with no civilian casualties, I truly believe they would pursue it.

Thank you Raynebc... it's good to see someone pays attention and has a brain in here. Yup, that is Hamas policy. Launch their rockets at Israel from homes close to women and children, schools and what not, then when Israel defends itself and inevitably kills some of them, the Hamas can yell "see?! Look at them purposely aiming for out women and children! Won't somebody think of the children?!?!?!" It's sickening, and you see the liberal, braindead reporters falling for it lock, stock and barrel.

Lookout! Someone said the l word! Liberal! Damn commie bastards! Okay I'm fine now. Just had to get that out.

When you lock a few million people into a tiny space, everyone is close to everything.

Let's not forget the main issue: Israel is occupying Palestinian land, which they shouldn't be doing.

That depends on one's interpretation of the situation. Does anybody have right to land that they have conquered? Israel's military operation here was to strengthen its security after continually escalating attacks from Hamas, not to attack Palestinians in the way Hamas exists to attack Israelis.

Everything has been "conquered" countless times over. You'd never sort it out if you did try.

In a civilized world: no. But this has been Israel's mode of operation for decades.

Occupying someone's land is a pretty aggressive move in the first place, don't you think?

Do you people realize, that people are looking to the UN to help with these problems. IF the UN is to decide who is a legitimate state, and who is not, than Israel is THE MOST LEGITIMATE STATE IN THAT REGION as it was the UN that created the state of Israel in the first place. The countries surrounding Israel lost land when they all attacked Israel, only they underestimated Israel's ability to defend itself and they actually lost land. Had it not been for the USA intervening, Israel would have marches straight into Egypt. Now they have been whining and complaining ever since about the land they lost. It's their own damn faults for attacking them in the first place.

Anyone who things Palestine and the Hamas want peace with Israel is an IDIOT. This conflict will continue until Israel is wiped out, or the world quits interfering. It seems to be a common theme these days, foreign conflicts erupt and suddenly the USA is the world police who swoops in to save the day. We need to butt out and let them resolve their own conflicts. Then maybe groups like the Hamas would stop using women and children as pawns in their media propaganda games.

I'm so glad you brought up the UN. Because the UN has said that Israel is now accused of war crimes.

So if the UN is the sovereign authority for that validness of Israel, then the authority just condemned their actions as monsters.

Meanwhile, I wonder why Palestinians are so angry...

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The Native Americans were glad to give up their land for our God-demanded mission! They didn't fight back or anything once we told them we were the most legitimate owner of the land.

My points aside, I must restate that I'm not against Israeli people at all, or pro-Hamas. I'm anti-killing civilians.

1) ^[1]
2) Says a body that gives Hamas rockets.
3)

Israel often uses precision munitions that do little damage to surrounding buildings. Firing rockets (or storing them, as is often the case) from a couple of buildings over from a school/hospital, while still unacceptable, would do wonders in ensuring the safety of that school/hospital.
If Hamas wanted their civilians to be safe, they'd:
1) Not store weapons in their schools/hospitals/houses.
2) Not tell them to ignore Israeli phone calls warning of impending bombs, or "roof knocking" bombs.
3) Not force them to ignore Israeli phone calls warning of impending bombs, or "roof knocking" bombs.
4) Not boobytrap their houses once they leave (to kill IDF forces), leaving their homes as deathtraps for when they go back after the conflict.
Instead, Hamas is actively increasing their own civilian deaths (It's fine, they're Shahids) to create a PR mess for Israel, vastly increasing their civilian death-toll, which could have been much much smaller. They've even occasionally accidentally hit their own people with their rockets (though they still blame Israel for that...).

Here's a roof knocking bomb in action (randomly found in youtube, comes from a gazan news source)

Lands they lost any moral rights to when they attacked Israel back in 1948, in spite of the fact that inviting all neighbouring countries to peace is in Israel's motherfucking declaration of independence.
Lands that help keep some strategic depth to help Israel defend itself.
Lands that if "returned" will allow Hamas (or any enemy using that territory) to constantly bombard the entirety of Israel with inescapable explosives.

Israel holding territory for self defense after being repeatedly attacked is 1000x more "civilized" then all North and South American countries from occupying land they stole from Indians and Aztecs, or any European country occupying land they conquered from various tribes (which themselves conquered them from someone else, most likely). Or are you saying that because that was a long time ago in an "uncivilized" time than that is okay? (In which case, just wait a few more years and everything will be fine)

Yup. Worth noting - Israel took the entire Sinai Peninsula, an area that is 60,000 square kilometers in size (much bigger than Israel itself!) and is rich in oil (which Israel does not have), and it was glad to give it back to Egypt in return for peace.
The truth is that if it was possible to make peace, Israel would have made it already.
While I admit that there are some problems with our political system; The more left-wing/liberal/peaceloving/moderate parties have much lower voting percentages than the more right-wing parties. The parties that seem to best represent the interest of "the common man" are also right-wing parties. Constant conflict with Hamas just boosts the strength of the right-wing parties. All of this does not really contribute to peace. However, the prime minister that will be able to bring peace to Israel will be perpetually hailed as a legend, canonized for the rest of Israel history; If anyone can do it, they will.

That should make you vehemently hateful of Hamas and silently appreciative of Israel.

Nobody is pro-Hamas killing children. Nobody should be pro-Israel killing children.

Nobody has ever made greater efforts than Israel to avoid civilian casualties in a war.

You sound a little too certain about your leaders.

American people have no fucking idea what atrocities their soldiers commit while deployed to war-zones. If they knew they'd be livid for all of 15 seconds before Fox News changed to Justin Beiber's new tattoo. That is all.

I don't know anything about the Palestinians or Israelis, but I'm glad to have some of them here in Allegro, and I'm glad to have shared conversations with another Israeli over Google Hangouts. I'm not sure that I've ever interacted with a Palestinian though. I think all religions involved are stupid.

I wish for everybody to put their emotions aside and look for an intelligent solution to the problem. Uniting the people as one is probably the only solution (since there would be no agreed upon fair way to resolve things otherwise). Those affected just need to look at each other as friends instead of enemies and work together to help each other out to build a future that is shared by all. That will take decades, but it has to start sometime.

As is obvious, Hamas does not want peace, it wants to annihilate its enemy and it openly states this. You can't really consider an ideal outcome with that type of extremist. After a more reasonable government is established in Palestine, the possibility of peace can be revisited.

Bullshit. I didn't want to participate in this thread, but this was just too much, they are the ones who are dropping the bombs, remember?

You sound a little too misinformed of the situation.

• Again, the UN gives Hamas rockets that it knows will be used to try and kill Israeli citizens (children included), so "The UN says that..." is very weak evidence.

• That article is from 5 years ago and happened a short while after another war. Do you know the exact situation? I don't, and the article does not even try to reveal it. Why did Israel deny aid? Is it possible it is because it was still too dangerous to enter Gaza? Is it possible it is because it was still too dangerous to allow free movement around Gaza? Is it possible that Israel was yet unable to inspect all goods for smuggled contraband? Maybe it is because Israelis need muslim blood to soak their matzas in? That article is full of nothing.

• You should also remember that many goods that are provided for aid purposes end up being hijacked by Hamas and used for their own nefarious purposes. For example, concrete that is meant to rebuild damaged homes ends up supporting the same tunnels used in this war to infiltrate Israel and attack Israeli citizens. The only reason Israel ever sent soldiers into Gaza in this war is specifically to destroy these tunnels, and many casualties on both sides could have been avoided if only someone could make sure that concrete was used for positive purposes.

• Where in that article does it mention that Israel itself provides aid to Gazans? Did you know Israel supplies most of the electricity to Gaza for essentially free (technically they owe us hundreds of millions of dollars for it, but they haven't paid for years and no one intends on cutting it off)? Israel also supplies water. Does it say that?

• Did you know Egypt currently also prevents any supplies from entering Gaza via its border (even though it used to be open)? Egypt which is a muslim, arab, country stopped supplies from entering Gaza because Hamas were such colossal dicks that they decided opening that border was more trouble than it is worth; Perhaps there's a good reason the transfer of goods is heavily restricted?

If I sound certain that Israel does its best to avoid civilian casualties it is because I know it does. As you may recall, Israel has mandatory conscription, so you know I used to be a soldier. As a soldier I saw many things to support my claims, from commands on how to deal with certain situations, the attitudes and words of the men in charge, to the efforts put into technology to make it less lethal and more precise specifically to avoid unintended fatalities. There is no doubt that Israel is working extremely hard to prevent any civilian deaths.

That I can get behind with, as I'm an atheist. However you need to realize that the problem is not strictly religious, even as an atheist I'd be afraid to live in another country as I may be prosecuted for my "jewish ethnicity". If another madman tries to kill my entire ethnicity I'd much rather have a country that will take me in and protect me and not be surrounded by countries that refuse to take in jews while the holocaust is taking place to avoid importing any racial problems.

I take it then that if I fired a rocket into your house you'd take the time to bake me cookies and try to talk me into being your friend? If you are still alive that is.
Israel is dropping bombs on motherfucking terrorists that want to see every Israeli men, woman and child dead and are currently trying to do just that. Unavoidably, some civilians die as a result of those bombs since Hamas works extremely hard to make sure that they do. It seems like you choose to ignore all the efforts that Israel does to minimize those deaths (calling bombings ahead of time, dropping bombs that alert citizens to escape before the building explodes, using much less lethal munitions to prevent as much collateral damage as possible etc.), which makes your post seem inflammatory, so I'll be honest and say that if you are trying to troll me then you succeeded, I am indeed upset, and I request that you stop (if not, then I hope you realize why I mistook your post for trolling and accept my apology for accusing you of such, since I have no personal grudge against you and my general impression of your other posts in this forum is positive).

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Where is your evidence the UN gives HAMAS rockets?

This, posted right here in this thread (which is why I just said "Again, ..." and provided no hyperlink).

You don't remember what happened 5 years ago in your own country? It was literally the previous time Israel and Hamas were shooting bombs at each other. It was headline making news the whole year.

Israel took over Gaza (good on them), and then refused to allow humanitarian aid to help the civilians (bad on them) giving a B.S. political answer that they thought weapons were being smuggled in under those boats.

What was actually happening was they were angry at the Palestinians and wanted them to suffer. If they really thought there were bombs on Red Cross ships they could have searched them. But instead, they let civilians suffer and die from injuries that could have been cured.

You talk like if Israel were unable to stop their strikes on Gaza. Making a bomb explode a few seconds later doesn't look like a great effort to avoid civilian casualties to me.

You can't say Israel is making a big effort to avoid civilian casualties when they are the ones who are attacking. I would answer the same way if someone said "Palestine is making a big effort to avoid civilian casualties". For me, at least, both sides are killing civilians, period.

I can perfectly understand you can't be objective on this topic being part of one of the countries involved in this conflict, but you can't expect to post comments trying to make Israel look like the good guys without irritating some people, like you did with me.

That's my point, and we are not forced to agree on this matter. Peace, I don't hate you, just posting my opinion, bye.

You blame Israel for having no option to defend itself other than destroying rocket launch sites and infiltration tunnels, but Hamas are the ones trying at all costs to ensure Palestinians are killed in the cross fire. I think saying "both sides are killing civilians" is oversimplifying to the extreme.

worth watching for those that want a more balanced view

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4ZfnpN4Dfc

I remember important things that happened 5 years ago, I don't remember the specifics of each claim against Israel since it is constantly bombarded with such bullshit claims.

The previous time Israel and Hamas traded blows was in 2012 in "Operation Pillar of Defense".

Weapons are constantly being smuggled into Gaza, and often under the guise of humanitarian aid, so a bullshit excuse it is not. It also makes a lot of sense that immediately after an armed conflict it would be more difficult to scrutinize every shipment on time (note how some aid was still allowed).
Is it also possible that Ehud Olmert (prime minister at the time) was not only trying to be cautious but was also a bit of an ass? It is possible (he definitely is an ass ), in this case I have no further knowledge than you so there's nothing extra for me to add other than what I've already said.
Look, it is also possible that right now Benjamin Netanyahu is also being a bit of an ass and not doing his best to resolve the situation as painlessly as possible (his own party thinks he is being too soft), however:

• If you (not any specific you here) think there is any organized Israeli effort aimed at harming palestinian civilians, you are either misinformed, deluded or racist (I'll specifically say that I don't think anyone here is deluded or racist). There are of course unorganized efforts (such as "Price tag" acts like vandalizing mosques in response to Hamas activity), which Israel tries to stop, but definitely no organized intentional effort to harm civilians.

• If you think Israel is dismissive of civilian deaths and not trying to avoid them then you are simply misinformed. As I've reiterated many times, Israel goes to great lengths the avoid such deaths.

• If you think Israel could do better then to that I can partially agree. I still hold that there is nothing further you can reasonably expect Israel to do during this war (it is definitely doing better than NATO in Afghanistan according to one guy in charge of NATO forces in Afghanistan). I will agree however, that outside the combat arena and in the political arena Israel could do better by the palestinians; As I said in the other thread, the current leadership has an interest in prolonging the conflict since that is what gets them votes, though I still think that if there was a reasonable resolution for the conflict in sight then they'd have taken it. (And again if you claim they are intentionally trying to cause civilian death then...). On the other hand, it is a tough situation, so it is hard to say what is the right or wrong thing to do.

I'll just go to the message that started this thread to help clarify things:

Calling Israel "a country that's killed over 1,200 civilians in the last month" is inciteful and misleading, roughly on par with accusing the US of currently engaging in slavery. Or perhaps rephrasing that as "Why did the country who killed 140,000 Iraqi civilians in Iraq in the last 10 years give a quarter of a billion dollars to...". Why is it inciteful and misinformed? Because it ignores both the cause of the bombings and the great efforts that are being done to prevent those casualties, instead presenting a situation where Israel randomly bombs civilians because they don't really like them.
For that matter it is also ignoring the fact that funding Iron Dome is also a political move meant so that further down the line the US will be able to tell Israel "come one, we gave you a bazillion dollars to defend yourselves against those rockets, you can safely calm down now (there's also the military reason, the US want some o' that sweet technology to develop further so they can use it to defend themselves against more sophisticated threats).

You are in charge - provide a reasonable alternative response to weapon launches and infiltrations into your country designed specifically to kill as many of your country's civilians.

Calling up civilians ahead of time to warn them that they are in a building that is about to be bombed, throwing an entirely none-lethal bomb to alert anyone that somehow still remains in the building that it is going to be destroyed and then firing a bomb which damages exactly that one weapon silo seems insufficient to you? Perhaps you can enlighten me as to the efforts other countries have taken to avoid civilian casualties that were more thorough? Did the US do anything better in Iraq for example?
I've provided the interview with Col. Richard Kemp (former commander of British NATO forces in Afghanistan) specifically because he says just that - "No other army in the world has ever done more than Israel is doing now to save the lives of innocent civilians", coming from a guy that was actually in such a sticky situation and involved with the intimate details.

Yes, they are attacking weapons that are currently in the business of being fired at it and attacking tunnels that are currently being used to launch attacks against its civilians (as well as smuggle weapons that are currently in the business of...).
Again, what would you do in the situation? If Mexican drug cartels started launching rockets into the US would you advise the US to ignore that and definitely not attack those drug cartels?

This is true, the difference is that one side is doing all that is in its power to avoid killing them, while the other side is throwing those civilians directly into the line of incoming fire.

I'll watch that later since I really have to get to work, however I'll just point out that that video was uploaded to YT in 2011 so it couldn't possibly go into any detail regarding the current war. It may or may not provide a balanced view of the Israeli-palestine conflict in general, but there's nothing it can say about any deaths going on right now.

The "current war" is a just a continuation of the "war of occupation and colonization" of the last 60+ years in the eyes of the both of the main protagonists. It also dispels some of the myths that Israel likes to put out about itself, which is an apartheid regime.

You missed a digit there.

Hmm, a lot of intersting holywars..

Uninstall CBS from your "approved news sources", really. You build your opinion on propogandistic bullshit.

By the way, Slartibarfast giving link to Israel Times is as smart as CBS. Get to some official UN reports or something.

Come on.. I mean of course each death is a tragedy, but go talk about something else. The Israeli story gets waaay to much coverage to death ratio. Go talk about Syria, Iraq or some African story. Well we talk about what's fun, but as of "world should do something" world should move Israel to end of queue, together with Ukraine and go fix africa, Iraq & Syria.

Append:

Well, it really really does. The civillian casulties really are tiny compared to the amount of targets struck, especially taking in to consideration the population density.

AND taking in to consideration Hamas DOES hide rockets in places like schools.

P.S:
That's an example of a source, not Israel <whatever>, or CBS or CNN or any other shit.

P.P.S:
I do disaprove Israeli actions. It's easy for me to talk while I'm outside the country, but Israel should just sit silent behind it's dome and let Hamas shoot what it got for no gain but some $ cost to Israel.

It contains some truths, but many half-truths and whole lies, and appears to be trying to sell us a book written by the speaker.

Indeed, this war could have been avoided 60 years ago had Israel not had to fight a war for its independence and instead was met with peace, and indeed there is no apartheid regime in Israel.

Yeah, I actually read that tidbit in another article on another site, but had trouble finding the original article so I just linked to the first article I found on Google

I'd add another digit there. Indeed modern Europian colonialism is only so old, but occupation and colonization are the entirety of human history. Israel itself was "owned" by various tribes, by Jews/Israelis, by Assyrians, by Persians, by Greeks, by Romans, by Arabs, then back and forth with those and Europeans, by Turks, and by the British.

That's the part where we won't be able to agree. In such asymmetrical warfare like this, I would have expected more from Israel (and USA I must say) in order to avoid civilian casualties.

Your tries to justify each of Israel actions against civilians looks to me like Israeli propaganda, my vision of the conflict is unbiased unlike yours, there are no good guys here, both are killing innocent people.

What more do you expect? Name the action that needs to take place and explain how it will save palestinian lives while still preventing rockets from hitting Israeli people and preventing terrorists from infiltrating and murdering Israeli citizens.

There are no actions against civilians to justify, there are actions against terrorists that inadvertently cause civilians harm.

All that will lead to is that Hamas will never stop shooting rockets at Israel.
IMO a better solution would be to go all the way and utterly destroy Hamas (at great cost to both Israelis and palestinians), set up a temporary "puppet" government until the quality of life in Gaza can be raised significantly without any terrorist groups interfering. Give them electricity, water, education, healthcare and highspeed internet that are all free from ties to any terrorist group and then transition the government into their hands to manage from a stable and pleasant state, where they can govern themselves without any terrorist coercion or power.

And what about the tunnels? There is no automated defense system to block 90ish percent of attacks using them. My understanding is that Hamas knows their rockets aren't effective as a killing mechanism, but they launch them incessantly as a means of psychological warfare to keep Israel's population in constant fear.

When Hamas makes EVERY target mingled with Palestinians, it doesn't leave lots of options. You make it sound like it would be easier to avoid civilian casualties. How? By scrapping air strikes and ramping up the number of ground forces instead? There would be fighting all over the place, not even limited to the sites of rocket launches and tunnels.

Slartibartfast could you specifically point out the whole lies?

Israel is an apartheid regime, as defined by international standards, to say otherwise just speaks of yours and others denial, in the face of facts.

Looking at the first sentence of Apartheid, there is no racial segregation nor any laws that establish different rights for any group. Any Israeli citizen whether they are arabic or not enjoys all the rights of a citizen, be it healthcare or the right to vote. Palestinians that are not citizens of Israel, i.e. those that are citizens of the palestinian national authority obviously do not enjoy any rights that are exclusive to Israeli citizens, in much the same way that they don't enjoy the rights exclusive to British citizens. Those are the facts, though if there's any specific law you'd like to bring up I'll be happy to inquire into it.

That will take a lot of time since there's a lot to cover, so I'll see if can do that over the weekend (though it really may be too much, is there something specific there you'd like to discuss?). I'll just tackle the first thing that popped into my attention. Around the 3 minute mark is the quote:

While they didn't technically have a military (neither did the jews as he acknowledges, they had a militia), they did have organized, armed, militant groups. Those same groups that 10 years ago tried to take palestine from the British, as well as kill whatever jews they could (luckily, the jews had a militia to protect themselves...). Going further into the future, immediately after the declaration of the planned partition plan jewish settlements were attacked, with palestinian gangs roaming the streets and attacking people and destroying property, organized regiments of the Arab Liberation Army as well as the Arab High Committee (the same guys that participated heavily 10 years ago). Furthermore, later on they also had the military of 4 different countries fighting on their side. Indeed how peaceful they were. He even goes on to describe how those evil jews went on to attack and conquer palestinian territories without even giving his regard to the fact that the jews were the ones originally attacked. It seems that his views are as balanced as those of Hamas itself...

Slartibartfast, I have never met anyone before I could consider a fanatic, that being someone who is so indoctrinated in their own BS that they can no longer distinguish fact from fiction. Congratulations you are my first.

Finland lost the last war against Soviet Union and had to give away territories and pay heavy reparations. It all was a very sad thing and as the history is written, the whole war was started by Soviet Union and Soviet is to be blamed. Of course, history is written differently in Russia, and maybe elsewhere, too, since Soviet kind of was one of the good guys in WW2.

<coming to the point />

But I wasn't born then. Whatever I feel for the thing, I have learnt from somewhere. I really don't care for any injustice that Finland had to suffer at that time. I live in a great country. On low level (person to person) we have good relations to Russia. I live under 100 km from the border, some of my pupils are Russian. I do know people, who lived during the war (my mother, my wife's parents...), my wife's oldest uncle participated in the war...

Yet, I wasn't born then. Looking at what happens in Middle East, I can't stop thinking about the young people there, who are fighting. Some bastards have taught their children to hate!

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It should be now noted that Israel doesn't believe in the freedom of speech of its critics... even Jewish ones.

Moreover, that a 2009 U.S. State Department report (you know, from their biggest ally),

I'll admit that's a tangent to the issue of civilians getting bombed. But it's fun to spice up things with some background details when someone tries to act like a country is flawless. (My country, for example? Very flawed.)

[reverse typo]

Johan has won the thread.

My base opinion(which means I'm lacking all necessary information to be confident with my conclusions) is that Israel isn't able to occupy Palestine & hold it with the force required to "change" Palestine enough. It's just an effort Israel cannot pull out taking in to consideration it's.. Blah, population. A 100 million people country can do that to a big city. Israel can't, at least not in the world where international opinion can have effect on Israel, or even destroy it with sanctions. Furthermore, every killed Palestinian, makes two(or any other number) new warriors ready to die killing Israelis. The deaths also win international support for Hamas. However, effort with no fruit could actually cripple their system, which I believe would be the right thing to do by Israel instead of feeding the system with blood.

Work'em from Israeli side. Whatever happens, just don't kill. That's the blow. There are more, and will always be more terrorists in Palestine than Israel can kill, so the enemy isn't the terrororists, but the ideology that is fed by blood.

Thank you!

When are governments going to realize that you 1) can't scare people who aren't afraid to die, 2) and that every time you accidentally bomb a civilian, you create a terrorist.

Pretty sure terrorist factions have been seeing an all-time high ever since we started bombing them in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Hateful words filled with irony, but still I hold no hate for you. As they say, It's a free country, and you are entitled to your opinions. I wish you all the best.

At least its nice to see that everyone is being discriminated against equally, and that Israeli press is free to report it

Nah, I just exaggerate a bit because debating such hot topics can get you angry and defensive.
If we're on the subject of racism, I'll say that the treatment of arabs in Israel is close to the treatment of blacks in the US say 20(?) years ago. There are no laws specifically against Israeli arabs and they get all their rights^[1], but still many people have personal prejudice against them.
Its a sticky situation, as Johan says; As a child you get to hear the sirens go off and see your family run scared into shelter, you see your mother constantly worry about you going out with your friends or going on buses, in case you'll be on the one that explodes. When you're old enough to see the news you hear about terrorist attacks that have been prevented (or succeeded), and you see the speeches the leaders give on the other side, promising to utterly destroy your country. It is hard to grow up with those things and not have some hate for the apparent source.
On the other side of the fence you get to grow up in a shitty city, while a neighboring country has a much higher quality of life, and they're sitting on your land^[2]. You go to school in a Hamas^[3] sponsored school and when you get hurt you go to a Hamas hospital. When you watch the news all you see are the various injustices^[4] that are committed against your people. It is hard to grow up with those things and not have some hate for the apparent source.
This is why my thoughts on how to solve the problem are basically to forcefully stop it, if you can get 20 years of quiet, high quality livin' on both sides I'm sure that people will find it much easier to make peace.
This is also why statements to the effect that Israel does <some horrible thing> easily upset me, because Israel does not do <horrible thing>, and Israel and its military are working very hard on acting morally and minimizing unnecessary harm (which I know first hand they do). In truth, sometimes <some Israeli guy that is filled with hate> does <horrible thing>, sometimes <some Israeli politician> <betrays the trust of the Israeli people>, and those are the guys that need to take the blame, those are the guys that need to be condemned and punished. In truth, people often ignore the intricacies of a situation and end up with incorrect conclusions. This is part of why debating on the internet is so hard

Maybe it doesn't, it is hard to know for a fact. Currently, Netanyahu is asking for Gaza to become a demilitarized zone. I am hopeful that his request will be granted and that that will form the first step towards the "plan" I described above^[5].

You can't scare the people who aren't afraid to die, but you can scare some of their leaders. Those guys live much more comfortable lives and are hesitant to throw them away, they also fear any internal change that could cause them to lose their power. It is those guys that Israel is trying to deter when they talk about restoring their deterrence. Some also hope that the people of Gaza will blame Hamas for "bringing down Israel's wrath on them" (which they did, for a very short time immediately at the start of this war). I'm not saying these things because I'm saying that's how things are going to work, just explaining different thought processes on the issue.
Ultimately, I agree that bombing Gaza is a crappy solution, and even done with extreme care it will win you enemies, not help make friends. However, it will also destroy rockets and tunnels that are used to hurt you.
The problem is that even though it is a crappy solution, I just don't see any viable alternative that will work (type568's solution included), so sadly I have to support the best option in hand. I also understand why you (no specific you here), who doesn't have any problem on their hands, do not feel the need for such a crappy solution. Which is why I try and make you understand the situation at hand

Oh come on, they ain't more stupid than you and me. They just play bigger games, their ahnds are tied by the system, they want the benefit of lobbyists money and etc', etc'..

Israeli prime minister is a a prime minister thanks to the conflict. You sure he really wants it solved? I think he most likely still does want. But I don't believe his judgement isn't clouded by the fact his power and power of his party is also fed by blood, not just is Hamas.

That sounds like you at least understand my point. I'm glad with that, those live in Israel often have a problem with that. A really close friend of mine is included.

It isn't so effective to look for tunnel apertures that aren't necessarily complete yet. IDF has already admitted they do not have technology to detect the tunnels so they have to look for openings that already exist. If a technology to destroy all tunnels without crossing Israel's wall could be used, by all means I'd endorse that over ground forces in Gaza. But wishful thinking doesn't yield the results that action does. Israel has to consider its own safety first. It can't always be on the defensive, Hamas was continually escalating the attacks and they WOULD have gotten worse to include large scale coordinated infiltration attacks using the tunnels. So Israel takes the tunnels out and withdraws.

Hamas won't stop attacking Israel while Israel exists, yet Israel does not want to be destroyed, so they really have no choice but to defend themselves. Hamas can make this more or less painful for the Palestinians, so I continue to hold Hamas accountable for their decisions to involve civilians.

I may have skipped something, but there was so far one Israeli civillian dead in the offensive. & it was to a rocket. Tunnels?

The tunnel openings are closer to the wall and not deep into the parts of Israel that civilians are inhabiting. Israel keeps its civilians away from the front lines, and I have read articles documenting that IDF has had casualties from Hamas insurgents that infiltrated Israel using a tunnel, often those insurgents are dressed as Israeli military.

If it's not deep in to the territory standing guard behind the wall may prove good enough. Going in is dangerous for the soldiers. And well, Palestinian(especially civilian) deaths spawn more terrorists as we agreed.

Append:
Though well it's silly analysis from sitting in safety, so it doesn't deserve much credit. Nevertheless, I see not why is this judgement wrong.*

*- does my latest sentence contain a grammar error? I'd like to know.

3 dead Israeli citizens, 2 from mortars and 1 from a rocket. As for tunnels, I know of at least one infiltration attempt that was prevented, had Israeli soldiers not been around, the inhabitants of at least one settlement could have been massacred. Whether this means that having guards is enough, I don't know. Either way there are still the smuggling tunnels, where a guard would not be enough. But as for how it is best to handle those tunnels - I don't know what the best way is, but what actually happened is that the IDF went in and destroyed those tunnels (those it had known of from before and those it found after entering), so hopefully that's dealt with for a while.

I understand what you are getting at, I just don't think it will play out like you think.

Also, hooray for a ceasefire, hopefully it will last indefinitely.
Also also, according to local news, Obama has just now signed off on those Iron Dome funds, and if I got the timing right, it was shortly after Israel (and then Hamas) agreed to a ceasefire, so my original theory here that the extra iron dome funding may be meant to incentivize Israel to declare a ceasefire by helping to guarantee a different form of protection (Iron Dome) may just be right

Ah well, don't want Israel bombing you, how about kicking the fucking Hamas out?! Otherwise, tough fucking shit.

I rather doubt that's good enough. Some/most/all of the tunnels found were paved and large enough to drive motorcycles through, in fact some tunnels were found to be storing motorcycles. IDF is patrolling for tunnel attacks now, but it wouldn't take long for Hamas to swarm in on bikes. The best defense was to destroy the tunnel network, which was IDF's goal.

I would suggest this instead: Nevertheless, I don't see why this judgment is wrong.

Yeah, I understood it the first time you said it, good enough. It's not unthinkable for you at least.

Americans -.-
Nevertheless, I don't see why is this judgement wrong.*
Or am I wrong?
And well, I didn't intend it as readable as possible, I wanted to write it the way I did.. I wondered though if I made an error there. (Though I wondered if I made an error there. I just like the first way I wrote it better though.)

You asked if it was grammatically correct and I gave you my opinion. I'm not an English major, but the way you had typed it doesn't sound quite right to a native English speaker (proper order of subject, verb, etc.).

The problem with something, that's written wrong, is that it might be ambiguous. It might be corrected in different ways.

"Nevertheless, I don't see why is this judgement wrong."

That's badly written. When the reader tries to fix that, he might try punctuation:
"Nevertheless, I don't see why. Is this judgement wrong?"

...or he might try word order:
"Nevertheless, I don't see why this judgement is wrong."

So it is written wrong? (I understand it doesn't feel native, my question was whether it's correct).

In Russia you can usually say something in a less native way that's still correct and doesn't have more than one meaning,there's a lot of freedom in words placement.

So, does this:
>"Nevertheless, I don't see why is this judgement wrong."

contain an error?

And this:

Well, these sound quite similar.. And their meaning is close to say the least.

I'd say yes, it is technically wrong. It's basically combining the syntax of a statement and a question. Like Johan suggested, "Why is this judgment wrong?" and "I don't see why this judgment is wrong" have different meanings and the original sentence is ambiguous. Native speakers will understand the general idea of what you're saying, but it's not obvious whether you're asking a question or not.

Word/statement order is rather important in English. At the very least it changes the emphasis, and at worst, it can render the sentence unintelligible.

@ranye

aha.. Right, I see.

@Thomas.. Yeah it is. In Russia you have a LOT, LOT forms of words, which let the order be less of a matter in certain cases, I guess that's the reason.

So, this:

Nevertheless, I don't see why is this judgement wrong.*

IS without errors, correct?

Actually English can be entirely ambiguous while still being correct. It isn't the ambiguity that makes it wrong. It's the grammar AKA syntax. We may be able to understand what it means with context, but we're still just making a best attempt at it. A strictly logical machine could not come to a certain conclusion.

Append:

FTFY.

I'm not sure what that is supposed to be saying to be honest. To me at least (and probably many other native english speakers), there's some missing punctuation there, or a word is out of place.

My brain wants to correct it to: Nevertheless, I don't see why this judgement is wrong.

If you say "Why is this" you're structuring the sentance as a question, but there's no question mark, and it seems like there wants to be some form of punctuation between the "I don't see" (or "I don't see why") and the rest.

As it is, it's awkward sounding, and It's not clear what you mean.
(aka: It's not clear what you mean, and it sounds awkward)^[1]

Here in 'Muricah, judgment is spelled without an e.

But regarding the grammar, subject-auxiliary inversion is just how it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject%E2%80%93auxiliary_inversion

If Jews lost the right to live in the Land of Israel, then every military action they carry out is illegitimate, otherwise there exists a right to self-defense.

Does anyone know at what point in the following timeline the Jewish faith/nation lost the right to live in Israel? Keep in mind that for every person who is on Wikipedia, there are several thousand who are not.

wikipedia link Gamliel II - Nasi c. 80-

wikipedia link Shimon bar Kokhba - Nasi 132-135

wikipedia link Shimon ben Gamliel II - Rosh Yeshiva wikipedia link second century

wikipedia link Gamaliel IV - President of Beit HaMidrash 270-290

wikipedia link Judah III - Nasi of Sanhedrin 290-320

wikipedia link Hillel II - Nasi of Sanhedrin c. 320-385

wikipedia link Gamliel V - Nasi of Sanhedrin c. 365-385

wikipedia link Judah IV - Nasi of Sanhedrin 385-400

wikipedia link Gamliel VI - Nasi of Sanhedrin 370-425

wikipedia link Mar-Zutra III - Aliyah 520 later Rosh Yeshivah of Tiverias

wikipedia link Binyamin of Tiverias - financed revolt against Heraclius 7th Century

wikipedia link Achai of Sabha - 8th-century Talmudist

wikipedia link Aharon ben Meïr - Nasi of Palestinian Gaonate in the early 10th century

wikipedia link Sa'adiah ben Yosef Al-Fayyumi - studied in Tiverias at young age, published Hebrew Dictionary at age 20 - lived from 882 or 892 until 940

wikipedia link Yefet ben Ali - Karaite commentator, lived in Jerusalem 950-980

wikipedia link Daniel ben Azariah - gaon of Eretz Yisrael 1051-1062

wikipedia link Shimshon ben Avraham of Sens - Tosafist - lived in Palestine c. 1211 - 1230

wikipedia link Yechiel of Paris - Tosafist, Founder of Midrash haGadol d'Paris in Acre - lived in Palestine from between 1258 to between 1265 and 1268 (disputed)

wikipedia link Ishtori Ha-Parhi - settled in Palestine after being victim of ethnic cleansing in 1306, physician in Bet She'an until 1355

wikipedia link Yitzakh ben Shmuel of Akko - Palestinian astrophysicist, born in Palestine 13th Century, fled Mamluk massacre c. 1305 to Spain

wikipedia link Ovadiah ben Avraham - March 25 1488 moved to Jerusalem, died c. 1515 in Jerusalem - commentator on Mishna

wikipedia link Yosef Saragossi - left Spain after expulsion 1492 for Tsfat, Mekubal well respected by Arab community, died 1507 in Palestine

wikipedia link Moshe Alshich - wikipedia link Acharon born in Ottoman Empire 1508, died 1593 in Tsfat

wikipedia link Elazar ben Moshe Azikri - born in Tsfat 1533, Songwriter, died 1600

wikipedia link Sabbatean prophet for failed messiah - born Jerusalem 1643

wikipedia link Perushim - disciples of the Gaon of Vilna who resettled in Israel 1808 - 1809

wikipedia link Makhlouf Eldaoudi - Hakham Bashi (Chief Rabbi) for Acre, Haifa, Tsfat, and Tiverias 1889-1909, born 1825 in Marrakesh

wikipedia link Jacob Meir - Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Mandate of Palestine, born 1856 died 1939 in Mandate of Palestine

edited so links work - i hope

Probably around 390CE with the split of the Roman Empire, and Palestine Prima became a Christian dominated province.
After that for the next 1500+ years it became Palestine in one form or another, with only a small Jewish minority.

No-one I know has denied the right of anyone to live in Palestine (Prima), but sombunal people seem to think that only certain people have the right to live in Israel.

The historical revisionism that goes on by Zionist apologists is up there with anything Orwell invented.

So a Jewish minority being occupied by Romans and Byzantines loses the right to live where they live?

Did the Christian and Jewish Palestinians being occupied by Arabs in 636 lose their right to live where they lived?

Did Jews and Muslim and Christian Arabs lose the right to live where they lived when the Histadrut declared independence in 1948?

For how many of those 1500 years was there a sovereign Palestinian state?

Ariel Sharon seemed to think that ethnically cleansing Gaza in 2005 was a good idea, and Israeli and Anglo-American ruling elites seemed to agree with him.

Personally, I don't care if there are Christians, Muslims, or Pastafarians living in Israel. It's the pressure from the world's elites to demolish Jewish homes, give resources to the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government, and release people who specifically target children for killing that bothers me.

When I see a Hebrew speaker use the word "judgement", I just automatically assume he meant "sentence" and can then only see the sentence as horribly broken.

The concept of a right to do anything is vague at best. Rights are granted solely by who holds power at any time. There is no innate human right to anything.

Getting good balance in a game takes judgement.

If rights are determined by who holds power then Jews got the right to move to Israel in 1917 and lost it in the 1930s.

The British empire had no right to issue the Balfour declaration in 1917, it wasn't their country.

If rights are determined by power, then non-Jewish Palestinians had no national rights for most of their history, being always part of a larger empire such as the Ottomans, the Seljuk Turks, the Egyptian Mamluks, the Caliphates etc.

Altalena, of course not, but then the indigenous population shouldn't lose their right to live where they live(d).

Also just because a few people of a certain faith lived there, doesn't give anyone else a claim to live there. Property rights, citizenship and other recognized international claims do however, claims and right that the Zionists are only too happy to ignore for others, and then seemingly complaining about their own being sacrosanct.

One thing man can learn from history is that man can't learn anything from history. This should be transfered somehow to speaking about rights to live somewhere. And rights of "a nation" or "a people". As I wrote earlier, Finland lost territories to Russia. Before that, Sweden-Finland lost its Eastern part to Russia. Before that, Russia lost parts to Sweden. Before that yadda yadda...

If you are referring to historical things and hope to "put things straight", you have to teach your children to hate! There. I said it again.

English is a rather analytic language, that means it has less possible morphemes per word or minimal inflection. For example, there are no case endings for nouns. Contrary to Russian, as far as I know.
As a consequence, you have to rely on word order to convey meaning, as you can't tell the meaning of individual words in the sentence from looking at their inflection or endings.

The word order in declarative sentences / statements is generally SV(O) or SP(O) meaning subject - verb (- object) or subject - predicate (- object).
In questions you do subject–auxiliary-inversion, as Matthew has pointed out.

IMHO your example contains an indirect question, which is a question semantically, but a statement syntactically, so you don't do any inversion, i. e. you have to use svo.

At the beginning of the Zionist movement in 1808, the Jewish nation was the one most recently sovereign between the Jordan river and the sea, since the 135 C. E. Bar Kokhba revolt, or the revolt of Heraclius. Any settlers from the surrounding area, or the Arabian peninsula, didn't magically get national rights just by settling and/or occupying Roman Syria Palestina and its successor provinces. The Jews are indigenous to Palestine.