Re: Hamas Israel War
 

I certainly am. I do not want Israel to go into Gaza and do what Hamas did to their victims. You might do but I certainly do not.

Re: Hamas Israel War
 

International law is not about stooping down to the level of terrorist groups, Old Boy. We should all demand higher standards than this.

Re: Hamas Israel War
 

:nutter:

You find it hard to understand that people expect a nation state to behave better than terrorists, really, that's your reasoning for carelessly throwing around antisemitism slurs :spin:

Re: Hamas Israel War
 

tbf, he though Liz Truss was doing a good job, so you can't really expect a reasoned or rational debate on this,,,

Re: Hamas Israel War
 

I see the Palestinian families can suck it brigade is now onto accusing forum members of being anti-Semitic.

Classy. Wanting Palestinians to not be massacred in war crimes. How appalling of us.

---------- Post added at 12:16 ---------- Previous post was at 12:07 ----------

Also asking a much more powerful military to work within its skill set rather than carpet bomb civilian areas, cut off civilian infrastructure and block humanitarian aid isn’t really much to ask is it?

---------- Post added at 12:17 ---------- Previous post was at 12:16 ----------

OBs clear disregard for Palestinian civilian life has been his one constant throughout the thread.

Re: Hamas Israel War
 

There is no suggestion that this is the case. The West would never support that even if it was true.

---------- Post added at 13:40 ---------- Previous post was at 13:37 ----------

You know very well what I’m saying, Andrew. The way some people try to get on Israel’s case when it’s trying to defend itself is perverse.

We are now in a situation where Israel needs to wade in and root out this abhorrent group of savages while doing its best to avoid civilian casualties.

---------- Post added at 13:42 ---------- Previous post was at 13:40 ----------

You neatly avoided the contextual last part of that paragraph. :rolleyes:

---------- Post added at 13:43 ---------- Previous post was at 13:42 ----------

You got it wrong again, dad. Deliberately too, I reckon.

Re: Hamas Israel War
 

I do which is why I called you out on your race to the bottom.

No one is criticising Israel's right to defend itself. But members like me on this forum are not giving Israel carte blanche to break international law by collective punishment like cutting off the utilities.

Re: Hamas Israel War
 

They have cut off utilities to force Hamas to surface from their tunnels, and apparently this has been pretty successful so far. How many Israeli soldiers do you want to be killed if supplies are restored? This is the quickest way of flushing them out.

This is not a ‘collective punishment’, it is the means to destroy Hamas. It is not aimed at the Palestinian civilians. There will be collateral damage whatever Israel does in fighting Hamas because they are using civilians as human shields.

You haven’t thought this through, Andrew. Your preferred option will achieve nothing except to prolong the war, and the longer it goes on, the more civilian casualties there will be.

Don’t sit there trying to describe what I think as ‘a race to the bottom’. Both the UK PM and the Leader of the Opposition understand and accept the Israeli strategy. You are the one who is off message.

Re: Hamas Israel War
 

You are banging your head against a brick wall. There’s no price that the population can ever pay, even in the blood of their children, that will be enough for those with the extreme anti-Palestinian sentiment that he holds.

The death count is what 3:1, 4:1? When is enough?

---------- Post added at 14:14 ---------- Previous post was at 14:07 ----------

You are absolutely deluded if you think Hamas are hiding out in tunnels relying Israeli electricity. I’ll give your flawed strategy some latitude though and ask the question how many days should it go on for if they don’t surface? How many Palestinian children dying does it take for it to no longer be considered proportionate?

Re: Hamas Israel War
 

I know who’s deluded, and it certainly isn’t me.

They need electricity (for ventilation as well as light), food and water. They can only hold out for so long.

Re: Hamas Israel War
 

I didn’t say they didn’t have electricity. I said Israeli electricity.

Which brings us back to how many days and how many child deaths before it is no longer considered proportionate? What if they have enough fuel, food and water for months?

Would you propose to starve the entire population for that long?

Is there no upper limit of Palestinian civilian deaths that you’d find unpalatable?

Re: Hamas Israel War
 

What's your source about the effectiveness of this approach?

Cutting off the utilities to the entire population is classified by brighter minds than ours as a collective punishment. It's really not that hard to work out why.

I've not expressed a preferred option, I've just said that international law needs to be followed. But don't kid yourself that any military action will end the war.

Benchmarking against Hamas - which is what you did - is a race to the bottom.

I've not followed the words of Sunak and Starmer to know their views on the utilities. Though like of all of us, they acknowledge the right of Israel to defend itself. I'm not sure anyone on this Forum needs to fall in line with their views anyway.

Re: Hamas Israel War
 

https://besacenter.org/cutting-the-e...-implications/

Re: Hamas Israel War
 

Thanks for posting.

It will be interesting to see where Old Boy gets his evidence that

Re: Hamas Israel War
 

Interesting article on the tunnels.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67097124