Children of Gaza-John Snow's message

[firemanbob]

"attempting to disarm Hamas" ... their "attempts to disarm" are described by the UN as a "gross violation of international humanitarian law" and by the US as disgraceful and appalling.

 

 

 

So Israel aren't even listening to their closest ally now?

 

Just clarify what you are saying here ... that it's OK for Israel to kill thousands of civilians because America did? Have I understood you correctly?

 

No you haven't understood me correctly.

 

Their close allies aren't the people under constant daily attack, the USA traveled half way round the world to bomb two counties that were not firing rockets at them on daily basis, so why should Israel listen to them, if the UN sorted the problem then Israel wouldn't have too.

 

---------- Post added 04-08-2014 at 06:50 ----------

 

Mozilla was referring to the Israeli mainstream media.

 

I don't doubt what he says is true. The same facts have been reported on Channel 4 news.

They don't see those terrible distressing images of children on their TV screens like we do.

 

The posts I've read of his, particularly on the thread that was closed, have made it perfectly clear it is the Israeli system of government he is against and not all Jews.

 

Its made up from all member of Israels society and voted in by the majority, if you attack the elected government of a country you attack the people that put them into government. Thats the reason we can't just blame Hamas, the people of Gaza gave Hamas the power to launch rockets at Israel, and the people of Israel gave their government the power to respond.

[blake]

I smell bull.

 

so do I. Having been on online forums about the Israel-Palestine issue for many years, I have noticed before that it is quite common for people to pretend that they are Jewish and Israeli or both and then spout the anti-Israel garbage as if it gives it better legitimacy.

 

it is also quite common for Muslims like Pakistanis or Turks to pretend that they are Arabs. Arabs from places like Saudi and UAE sometimes pretend to be Palestinian 'refugees' as well, when they are not, although sometimes yes 'genuine' Palestinians do post. And when they do, the 'real' Palestinians posts are usually OK, although they do posit an anti Israeli position, Palestinians (who are usually in the west, sometimes the Gulf only very rarely in Palestine itself) they tend to do so in a reasonable way. They don't have the hatred and bile that Mozilla's copy and paste job posts do.

[Mecky]

And Islamism isn't?

 

---------- Post added 03-08-2014 at 23:46 ----------

 

What? Are you saying that the Palestinians don't fire rockets at Israel?

 

It's funny that isn't it? Because by and large it isn't Israel that is trying to take over the world with infiltration and violence.

[alchemist]

This isn't a war, give the Palestinians an army and weapons and then we will see it as war.

Right now it's israel terrorising Palestinians who have no real weapons.....

 

I think something that can kill someone when randomly fired by cowards can be considered a real weapon. Besides, if the palastinians themselves really believe they are not weapons why do they keep firing them at isreal and gaza? hamas considers itself in a war so why do you think otherwise?

[janie48]

Strange I never mentioned Jews

 

No you didn't, but I was reading between the lines.

[clinteastwoo]

 

Let's get real.

israel considers itself to be at war. All the reactions you describe above are typical of the people of a country at war and completely understandable.

At war with who ? A country less people with no armed forces, no navy, no air force ?

People that have to make rockets to fight back with that have no guidance and just small arms to use against the tanks and well equipped forces that come in to occupy at will ?

Or do you mean the women and children that make up the majority or the victims of the aggression from their Israeli jailors that are made out to be party to this through lies that they are 'shields' ?

 

Yes lets get real.

 

 

 

A country at war can not afford to have dissenters (some would say traitors) roaming around.

 

Wow that it right out of a Fox news report, never mind 'some would say', what would you say ? Are they traitors ?

Don't hide behind a fictitious third party to get your view across, say what you think.

[blake]

Or do you mean the women and children that make up the majority or the victims

 

this is not actually true although it has been repeated so often, people have come to believe it.

 

they always say 'women and children', to try and put across the false notion that the Israelis are being totally indiscriminate. 'Women and children' make up the massive majority of Gaza's population, as the median age for both sexes is 18 years of age, which means that 50% of Gaza's population of both sexes are under that age and females older than 18, make up roughly 50% of the rest, that are over 18 .

 

this means then, that roughly 75% of Gaza's population, are 'women and children'.

 

a far better sign of whether the Israelis are being indiscriminate is how many of the victims, of any age, are female. Females are 50% of the entire population of any age, and if the Israelis really were being indiscriminate, then roughly 50% of the victims, of any age, children or not, should be female.

 

but they are not 50% female. It turns out the Gaza victims are not anything close, to being 50% female. They are more like 20%.

[firemanbob]

this is not actually true although it has been repeated so often, people have come to believe it.

 

they always say 'women and children', to try and put across the false notion that the Israelis are being totally indiscriminate. 'Women and children' make up the massive majority of Gaza's population, as the median age for both sexes is 18 years of age, which means that 50% of Gaza's population of both sexes are under that age and females older than 18, make up roughly 50% of the rest, that are over 18 .

 

this means then, that roughly 75% of Gaza's population, are 'women and children'.

 

a far better sign of whether the Israelis are being indiscriminate is how many of the victims, of any age, are female. Females are 50% of the entire population of any age, and if the Israelis really were being indiscriminate, then roughly 50% of the victims, of any age, children or not, should be female.

 

but they are not 50% female. It turns out the Gaza victims are not anything close, to being 50% female. They are more like 20%.

 

And 57% of the dead were males between the ages of 17 and 39. While it’s unclear whether these men were actually militants, the disproportionate number of young men of prime fighting age suggests that there may be more combatants among the dead.

 

Only about 12% of the total fatalities are female, though females make up half the population, the median age of Gazans is reported to be around 15. Males under 15 make up just 13% of the total fatalities even though they represent half of all males in the Gaza Strip.

 

Palestinian Center for Human Rights, a Gaza-based organization operating under Hamas rule, indicate that young males ages 17 to 30 make up a large portion of the fatalities, and a particularly noticeable spike occurs between males ages 21 to 27, a pattern consistent with the age distribution typically found among combatants and military conscripts. Palestinian sources attempt to conceal this discrepancy with their public message by labeling most of these young men as civilians. Only a minority is identified as members of armed groups.

 

Are the “overwhelming majority” of the dead really civilians? It would seem so. We see a great deal of grotesque and heart-rending footage of dead and bleeding women and children but never so much as a glimpse of killed or wounded fighters. Nor do reporters question or comment on the complete absence of Gazan military casualties, an extraordinary phenomenon unique to this conflict. The reality of course is that Hamas make great efforts to segregate their military casualties to preserve the fiction that Israel is killing civilians only. There are also increasing indications that Hamas, through direct force or threat, are preventing journalists from filming their fighters, whether dead or alive.

 

We will not get to the truth until the battle is over. But we know now that Hamas have ordered their people to report all deaths as innocent civilians. We know too that Hamas has a track record of lying about casualties. After Operation Cast Lead, the 2008-09 fighting in Gaza, the IDF estimated that of 1,166 Palestinian deaths, 709 were fighters. Hamas – backed by several NGOs – claimed that only 49 of its fighters had been killed, the rest were innocent civilians. Much later they were forced to admit that the IDF had been right all along and between 600 and 700 of the casualties had in fact been fighters. But the short-memoried media are incapable of factoring this in before broadcasting their ill-founded and inflammatory assertions.

[blake]

Gaza median age is a hit higher than 15. It is just under 18, which is still very low. Though truly reliable stats are hard to come by, especially with the up-to-date part of the conflict, when you have been following the whole thing for years, you see that a pattern emerges and that Arab victims of the Israelis are much more likely to be male rather than female, than Israeli victims of the Arabs are.

 

you saw this in the '2nd intifada'. Both sides, Israelis and Arabs alike, would post pictures of their victims in public places like on lamposts etc. Straight away, it was noticeable that there were many more pictures of female victims in the Israeli tributes than Arab ones. Although there were still more male victims than female in the indiscriminate Israeli terrorist bus and pizza parlour type bombings perpetrated by Arab terrorists, like 65%, Arab male victims of the Israelis responses were much higher than that - like 85%.

[Anna Glypta]

The news this morning is that Israel's troops are withdrawing from Gaza under the ceasefire.