Unseen Gaza - C4 last night

grantus

Did anyone watch this?

What an absolute disgrace this is allowed to happen and we get the sanitised pictures on our tv.

I had to switch off halfway through - it's enough to make your blood boil how these bloody Nazis get away with what they're doing to the people in Gaza.

spen666

I blame the FA and people like Danny Baker etc.

There were always demanding of him when he was succesful, but nowadays, they've all left him to suffer with his addictions and demons

grantus

Hilarious - I take it you didn't see the pictures of the children with their faces blown off?

redddraggon

grantus wrote:

it's enough to make your blood boil how these bloody Nazis get away with what they're doing

Nazis? I think you'll find thats very offensive, especially to the people you are directing it to.

spen666

grantus wrote:

Hilarious - I take it you didn't see the pictures of the children with their faces blown off?

I've seen him off his face a few times

fast as fupp

redddraggon wrote:

grantus wrote:

it's enough to make your blood boil how these bloody Nazis get away with what they're doing

Nazis? I think you'll find thats very offensive, especially to the people you are directing it to.

so your argument is because the jews got it from the nazis in ww2 theyve got a free pass to dish it out to the arabs?

redddraggon

fast as fupp wrote:

so your argument is because the jews got it from the nazis in ww2 theyve got a free pass to dish it out to the arabs?

I think it's very offensive to call the Israelis Nazis.

grantus

Reddragon - that's a typical ploy to discredit anyone who dare criticise what Israel does as a nation.

While you won't hear me denying the holocaust I think some people would do better than to stop turning a blind eye to what Israel is getting away with in Gaza.

Your comment reminds me of the fuss around Ken Livingstone's comment to the journalist about him being 'like a concentration camp guard' if the reporter in question hadn't been Jewish there wouldn't have been as much as an eyebrow raised over it.

Would Britain have been justified in launching an all-out attack on Catholic areas of Belfast everytime the IRA bombed England?

Why is it justifiable for Israel to do this to Gaza? Then if you are critical you are an anti-semite. It's all wrong.

spen666

grantus wrote:

Reddragon - that's a typical ploy to discredit anyone who dare criticise what Israel does as a nation.

While you won't hear me denying the holocaust I think some people would do better than to stop turning a blind eye to what Israel is getting away with in Gaza.

Your comment reminds me of the fuss around Ken Livingstone's comment to the journalist about him being 'like a concentration camp guard' if the reporter in question hadn't been Jewish there wouldn't have been as much as an eyebrow raised over it.

Would Britain have been justified in launching an all-out attack on Catholic areas of Belfast everytime the IRA bombed England?

Why is it justifiable for Israel to do this to Gaza? Then if you are critical you are an anti-semite. It's all wrong.

Grantus - that's a typical ploy to discredit anyone who dare object to what is said against Israel


To say that reddraggon thinks it is offensive to call Israel Nazis is saying nothing in defence ofthe actions of Israel. It seems that you have a closed mind and that anyone who does not 100% agree with you must be justifying and supporting the actions of Israel.

not so

Eau Rouge

Is it just me, or do both sides in that dispute digust other people too?

On one hand you have Isreal, supposidly one of us, a Western democracy, with a military who's tactics, strategies, discipline and willfull infliction of civilian deaths and destruction is intolerably beyond contempt, and a governemnt who, far from trying to curtail the worst, actively defends it all as being perfectly justified.

On the other, you have Hamas firing rockets willy-nilly into Isreal that militarily are of very little consequence. The only reason Hamas has to fire them is that they know full well that the issue of the rockets will be blown out of proportion in a paranoid Isreal, and Hamas is counting on the IDF doing the usual thing and blowing half of Gaza up in reprisal, knowing that that will get reported in a Channel 4 show and gain sympathy in the west for the "poor palestinians" Goading someone to kill your own people to curry international sympathy isn't what I call freedom fighting.

The outcome, a little more respect for Fatah, who don't feel the need to get Isreal to blow half the West Bank up in order to keep power, but would rather get on with running the place.

Monty Dog

More galling was the likes of ours and the US governments no being prepared to condone this massive and disproportionate use of force. Robert Fisk of the Independent has written some great pieces about the Middle East.

grantus

Eau rouge - I agree with most of what you write however the C4 programme I felt was trying to be as balanced as it could. At the end of the day Israel is preventing Western journalists from entering the area therefore the only coverage we will see is from the embedded arab journalists who are living in Gaza. In my opinion C4 was trying to show what is happening inside the strip and explain how covergae is being strictly censored by Israel. They weren't trying to slant it in favour of one side or the other but at the end of the day the 'poor Palestinians' were running around trying to scoop up their kids in schools and get them to primitive hospitals where there was no medicine to treat them with because the Israelis won't let it in - if you want to call that propaganda then fair enough - but it's still hundreds of dead children regardless. Just because I think this is wrong doesn't mean I think Hamas rocket attacks are right but I would make the analogy of the IRA again like I did earlier.

Does it gall me to see Gerry Adams and McGuiness strutting about like statesmen? Yes Do I find what they perpetrated and supported for years disgusting? Yes Should the SAS have gone in and taken these people out? I think so. Would I rather things in Ulster went back to the way they were in the 70s and 80s? No

Should the British Army have flattened the Bogside and stopped food and medical supplies from getting through the Catholic population in general? Obviously the answer is no.

To refer to spen666 - I was not trying to discredit Reddragon - it was the other way about. Anyway, you've shown your character by your posts on this thread.

I can see why someone would find me referring to Israelis as Nazis offensive - I stand by it. I used to be fairly ambivalent towards Israel/Palestine believing both were as culpable as each other however Lebanon and now Gaza has changed my mind. It seems Israel thinks it can use totally disproportionate force against normal people to hit at it's real enemies of Hezbollah and Hamas.

Anyway, my main point was actually the sanitisation of news coverage we see in the West. We don't see the ugly side of what is going on, nor did/do we in Iraq. I think we should be shown what is happening in the world with our country's backing and the consequences for ordinary people it has.

Frank the tank

My sympathies lie with the Palestinians, but I'm not condoning Hamas' actions and certainly not the Isrealie over-reaction. Whenever you get a group of people that are disenfranchised and driven from their homeland of course there will be trouble. I agree with the paralells that have been drawn with northern Ireland and indeed there, may I be so bold as to suggest, lies the answer.

THE ONLY WAY the issue will be sorted is with dialogue; and until there are people big enough to talk and take unpalatable actions (as was done with NI early release of murderers etc being one) there is no chance of any sort of lasting peace in the region.

As an aside, did you notice the change in attitude of Americans towards the IRA AFTER the twin towers attrocity.

OffTheBackAdam

Hamas have no interest in dialogue, they and their Iranian backers have only one intent, the return of the Caliphate.
They have no interest in the sufferings of fellow Pallestinians, of any political persuassion.
They're simply pawns in their particular, wharped Jihad.
The Israelis didn't let independant obsevers in, because they knew that there'd be casualties amongst the civilian population. They needed to hammer Hamas, which they've done.
We didn't let journalists lose in Iraq, they were kept largely within Coalition forces' control. Why? The same reasons, remember the pictures of a market in Iraq, destroyed cars, damaged buildings around them, crater visible. Iraqi's say that it was caused by a Coalition plane's bomb, real reason? One of their own SAM missiles fails to blow up in the air.
Hamas are quite happy, (as were Saddam Hussein's forces in the Gulf Wars) , to set up next to schools, hospitals, mosques, anywhere where there's a strong possibility of civilian deaths, better still if they're women & children. All the better to bring public opinion out against Israel.
Likewise, Iraqis launch SCUDs against Israel during the Secong Gulf War? Why? Israel wasn't involved in the attack on them, but by bringing them in, which if the SCUDs had caused civilian deaths, as they were intended, then arab popular opinion would mean that arab Coalition members would have to withdraw their forces, those making it a "West + Israel v Arab" war.
Israel offered Arafat & Fatah most, if not all what they wanted. Arafat responded by launching the Intafadah.
King Hussein of Jordan threw the Pallestinians out of Jordan, as they caused so much trouble. Read Fatah for Pallestinians. There, again, the innocents suffer for their leaders' desires.
When Hamas gained overal power in Gazah, their first acts were to attack Fatah. I'd bet religion played a part there, with Sunni pitched against Shia. Remember that divide too, that's continuing to fuel bloodshed in Iraq.
Is there a chunk of electioneering in the timing of the Israeli attack? Highly likely.
But when your country is under a steady hail of rockets, not aimed at any type of military installation, incapable of being aimed in any other manner than crudely towards a town or village, what can be done?
Hamas sought an Israeli attack, they got it.
Both sides show culpability, I'm more angered by the actions of Israeli forces, who when they catch a demonstrator, blindfold him, then shoot him at point-blank range with a rubber bullet (Article in last weekend's Sunday Telegraph), than when they drop a precision-guided 500lb bomb that destroys a Hamas leader's house, kills him, half his family and possibly the neighbours too.
At least then, they are trying to minimise non-combatant casualties.
Comparing this situation to the IRA's activities is to compare apples & oranges.
In both terrorist camapaigns, you've a minority of people, who will do anything to further their cause. They have a larger cohort of helpers around them, to help supply & support them.
But the IRA didn't launch mortar attacks from the back gardens of houses in the Falls Road, they didn't have thousands of men armed and ready to attack any patrol that went to hunt the bombers.
Wars are horrible things, whichever way you look at them. Religious wars are worse.

Gavin Gilbert

Bloody hell. I agree with Adam.

I feel unclean :?

Eau Rouge

grantus wrote:

In my opinion C4 was trying to show what is happening inside the strip and explain how covergae is being strictly censored by Israel.

I didn't intend to imply otherwise.

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

But when your country is under a steady hail of rockets, not aimed at any type of military installation, incapable of being aimed in any other manner than crudely towards a town or village, what can be done?
Hamas sought an Israeli attack, they got it.

This I don't quite buy. These rockets have very limited range, so it's not as if most of Israel is under attack, and even in the bits that are under attack, the rockets are so indiscriminate that you have to be pretty unlucky to be affected by one, most of them hit empty land.
Sure, they are still a problem, but this isn't Hamas killing hundreds of Israeli's.

There is a need for a response to them, but the IDF's tactics and methods are simply not what is needed here. Israel's guff about "targeted attacks" and "not wanting to kill civilians" would be beyond a joke if it weren't for the hundreds of people they kill. If it were true, the IDF would be paralysed, finding it's expensive weaponry useless. Not having the ability to fight Hamas without killing civilians is not an excuse to kill civilians, and certainly not in the scale of Israeli attacks.
For example, the IDF will destroy, say, a hospital in Gaza. When people ask why they give some answer about a rocket having been fired from the roof of it and landing in a field in Israel, probably frightening some passing sheep. Some people even accept this as a vague justification. "I wouldn't have done it, but if your going to be hard on Hamas, then this is kinda fair I suppose" they think. But hang on, the guys who fired the rocket...they didn't die in the hospital attack, they couldn't have. They weren't there. They fired the rocket and left. They were gone before the rocket landed. The IDF knows this full well, they still destroyed the hospital even though it would not at all effect the people they are supposed to be targeting. In what way is that right? The hospital attack isn't being hard on Hamas, it has nothing to do with Hamas, there's nobody from Hamas there to be effected by it.

But that's all largely immaterial of course. The bottom line here (outside the ultimate bottom line that Israel is always wrong until it allows a Palestinian state to be formed) is that Hamas is counting on the IDF to be it's usual evil self. For Hamas, the worse the IDF is, the better. The Israeli's are bigger idiots to fall for it, only, they aren't. They are too smart to fall for it. That they do it can only really mean that they kinda like killing women and children and destroying a cities vital infrastructure.

Again, both sides make me equally sick.

OffTheBackAdam

Gavin Gilbert wrote:

Bloody hell. I agree with Adam.

I feel unclean :?

I'll have you voting for Boris at the next Mayoral Elections!

Oh, and for the benefit of the poster who's post got pulled, your history of the "Holy Land" is a bit sketchy.
Judaism was there first, Christianity is essentially a sect thereof.

Eau Rouge, I agree, both sides are quite nauseating, but that's what happens when you get an essentially religious war.
The "Qassam" rockets, essentially a version of the WW2 era Katoushka did pose little serious threat,with a range of some 5-8 miles, the newer Grad ones now can reach 15 miles. Israel's concern is how long before Hamas acquires rockets that can and will reach Tel Aviv.
Currently, some 45,000 Israelis are within range of these various rockets, increasing range will lead to 250,000 under threat.
We're not talking about a few rockets lobbed over either, during a period of a "cease fire", the last 2 weeks of May 07, there were 300 recorded landings, out of some 2,000 during 2007.
They may not be killing or physically wounding many people, but if you and your family have to decide whether to take to a bomb shelter 3 times a day, the mental strain is building too.

Here are Hamas's "Principles"

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."

A chunk of the "Hadith", Islam's oral tradition that forms part of Hamas's ethos.

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."


I'll leave you all to make your own minds up as to what sized state Hamas feels is right.

Eau Rouge

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

Israel's concern is how long before Hamas acquires rockets that can and will reach Tel Aviv.

And in there is what any civilised countries solution should be to this problem.
Hamas can't build it's own rockets, and Iran doesn't have teleportation technology. The solution is simple, stop the rockets getting in.
This really shouldn't be that hard either. The UK government managed to stop the IRA getting any anti-air weapons after all.

spen666

grantus wrote:

....
To refer to spen666 - I was not trying to discredit Reddragon - it was the other way about. Anyway, you've shown your character by your posts on this thread.

....

Really? So what character have I shown?

What wrong assumptioons are you making about me or my views/ beliefs?

spen666

Eau Rouge wrote:

grantus wrote:

In my opinion C4 was trying to show what is happening inside the strip and explain how covergae is being strictly censored by Israel.

I didn't intend to imply otherwise.

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

But when your country is under a steady hail of rockets, not aimed at any type of military installation, incapable of being aimed in any other manner than crudely towards a town or village, what can be done?
Hamas sought an Israeli attack, they got it.

This I don't quite buy. These rockets have very limited range, so it's not as if most of Israel is under attack, and even in the bits that are under attack, the rockets are so indiscriminate that you have to be pretty unlucky to be affected by one, most of them hit empty land.
Sure, they are still a problem, but this isn't Hamas killing hundreds of Israeli's.

....

to take this anaology further, perhaps we in the UK should do nothing about suicide bombings on the Tube as the bombs were of limited range, only affect very small parts of UK ie one tube train per bomb and even then only part of train and the bombs are so indiscriminate that you have to be pretty unlucky to be affected by one....



Is this a sensible approach?

beverick

spen666 wrote:

Eau Rouge wrote:

grantus wrote:

In my opinion C4 was trying to show what is happening inside the strip and explain how covergae is being strictly censored by Israel.

I didn't intend to imply otherwise.

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

But when your country is under a steady hail of rockets, not aimed at any type of military installation, incapable of being aimed in any other manner than crudely towards a town or village, what can be done?
Hamas sought an Israeli attack, they got it.

This I don't quite buy. These rockets have very limited range, so it's not as if most of Israel is under attack, and even in the bits that are under attack, the rockets are so indiscriminate that you have to be pretty unlucky to be affected by one, most of them hit empty land.
Sure, they are still a problem, but this isn't Hamas killing hundreds of Israeli's.

....

to take this anaology further, perhaps we in the UK should do nothing about suicide bombings on the Tube as the bombs were of limited range, only affect very small parts of UK ie one tube train per bomb and even then only part of train and the bombs are so indiscriminate that you have to be pretty unlucky to be affected by one....



Is this a sensible approach?

On the other hand, the British intelligence services haven't reacted to the attacks by bombing the Beeston area of Leeds (although it could do with it on aesthetic grounds....).

The courts have dealt with (and are continuing to deal with) the punishment and retribution whereas the intelligence services have continued in disrupting subsequent attacks.

Bob

OffTheBackAdam

Eau Rouge wrote:

And in there is what any civilised countries solution should be to this problem.
Hamas can't build it's own rockets, and Iran doesn't have teleportation technology. The solution is simple, stop the rockets getting in.
This really shouldn't be that hard either. The UK government managed to stop the IRA getting any anti-air weapons after all.

Hamas does build its own rockets, the shorter-ranged stuff is home built.
You've hit the nail on the head with the solution to the longer ranged ones.
However, "simple" it isn't.
Egypt "sealed" its border with Gaza, partially to prevent such materials being moved in. Hamas dug tunnels under the border.
There's access to Gaza from the sea too.
Since Israel is surrounded on 3 sides by Arab states, with a less than cordial relationship with it, the scope for passing weapons through is huge. It's not feasable to search every lorry, bus, car or even donkey that is carrying goods into Gaza.
You're in error about the IRA's failure to acquire surface to air missiles.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4284048.stm
"The IRA's store of surface-to-air missiles, acquired for the same purpose, were never used."
Suggests that they did possess them, but didn't opt to use them.
Intercepting shipments of arms to the Irish terrorists, with their organisations deeply penetrated by friendly intelligence services was much easier than Israeli attempts to penetrate Islamic Terrorist cells.

Jez mon

As someone who studied the Arab Israeli conflict I feel sympathetic towards the civilians on both sides. Nevertheless, only one side has suffered millions of refugees and only one side has occupied territories illegally.

The UN has tons of security council resolutions against Israel. It often plays just as bigger a role as aggressor than Palestine.

The one time when any real progress was made was when both sides opened dialogue, other than that the peace process has been a more or less unmitigated disaster. Before saying that no one should negotiate with terrorists, remember that, one man's terrorist, is really just another man's freedom fighter and that at the end of the day, engagement does not mean endorsement.

cadenza

Interesting and polarized as all the above posts may be, the pivotal point has so far been missed. Regardless of the moral rights and wrongs on both sides, it is the Government and armed forces of Israel who have broken the law - International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Conventions. There can be, and should be, no excuse for refusing humanitarian and medical aid to reach those innocents who are caught up in armed conflict. For refusing the International Red Cross's request for access to injured and dying civilians for more than 72 hrs, those in authority fully deserve contempt and punishment from the international community.

1footedninja

If you think the slaughter of the innocent in Gaza was a one-off, then read this ...

http://www.rense.com/general84/ahas.htm

http://kennysideshow.blogspot.com/2008/ ... haped.html

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http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/ ... _Roosevelt

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OffTheBackAdam

Hamas stopped civilians leaving Gaza by sealing its border with Egypt.
http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/01/03/revealing-silence-at-the-egyptian-border-why-does-hamas-victimize-its-own/
Both sides are equally reprehensible in this conflict.