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Originally Posted by Slims
Incriminator: It is common knowledge how reluctant Israel and the West are to destroy Mosques. For that reason, they are frequently used to stage weapons, hide fighters, and as a base from which to conduct attacks. I have seen it first hand in Afghanistan, where Taliban will hide large caches in Mosques because they don't believe you will search them, or will flat out conduct mortar/rocket attacks from within the Mosque because they believe you will not blow it up. I am sure that Israel did not make that decision lightly because of the outcry they knew would follow.
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The Israeli spokeswoman said that it can destroy a civilian building which is affiliated with Hamas. Israel thinks it can do so because one branch of Hamas is violent, and that therefore anything affiliated with Hamas is a military target. The are not differentiating between military and civilians.
That is the same line of idiotic reasoning that Hamas employs to send Qassam rockets indiscriminately into Israel. Again, and I'm repeating myself just so that I'm clear. Israel is not destroying some of these civilian building because they have fighters or munitions in them, but only because they have "Hamas affiliation" which is almost meaningless when it is applied to a University built before Hamas had control.
This is a far cry from "collateral damage" as this is intentional targeting of acknowledged civilians.
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Originally Posted by Slims
At the core of it, I really don't understand the difficulty here. Sure there is a lot of violence on both sides to distract from the main issue, but the bottom line is Hamas has sworn to destroy Israel and has refused to back off on it's position of total destruction.
I feel Israel has been provoked, and has every right to kill until Hamas either surrenders or the people of Gaza capitulate. That's how warfare typically works. Instead, you have an enemy who pokes you with a stick until you retaliate and then cries foul to the international community...
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The issue as I see it is this, Hamas [not Palestinians] needs to stop attacking Israel and Israel needs to have respect for Palestinian life. Israel should retaliate against Hamas militants who kill innocent civilians, but Israel MAY NOT indiscriminately kill civilians in order to do so.
Ultimately Slims, you seem to be arguing that I believe Israel shouldn't act. That is not the case. In this conflict you are trying to make everything black and white, when there is much gray. It is important to know where the facts truly lie, to be able to see when the gray fades into black. In this case, it is important to understand the validity of Israel's actions, as well as the invalidity. It would be an injustice to do otherwise. Of course, at the same time we must point out the invalidity of the Hamas actions, to not do so would also be an injustice.
RoachBoy's. If Israel were more circumspect with its use of force, there would be less Palestinian support for Hamas. However Hamas does, along with its military activities, also provide humanitarian support which garners it a lot of support so I don't know how much Israel can do to change the Palestinian government.