JBChiangRai

I suspect credit cards may be subject to different regulations, I don’t know as I don’t have one.

I’m calling BS. Those two statements are not the same, not even remotely the same. My comment said it was wrong for Israel to use bombing and massacring innocent civilians as a lever to get their citizens back. It couldn’t be farther from your fanciful interpretation. Are you incapable of reading and comprehending English?

I never said Israel has no justification to ask for its hostages back, read my posts and tell me where I said that? If you can’t I will accept your apology.

You are spouting rubbish. I absolutely condemn what Hamas has done, I have made it very clear here. My position is targeting the innocent civilians is wrong and looks more like revenge than a plan balanced with proper objectives and calculated acceptable collateral damage. Nothing I have said condones Hamas, nothing I have said condones Israel’s response. What’s shameful is you trying to imply I somehow support what Hamas has done in Israel. It’s clear I don’t. It’s also clear that nothing I say is going to change your view that thousands of innocent Palestinians being massacred is AOK, and nothing you can say will make me believe this massacre is justified. I am going to leave it at that.

That is a very valid point, we could say the same about Putin and Russia

It’s like saying if Germany buys gas from Russia they will stop bombing Ukraine. What a terrorist organisation is doing cannot be combatted by massacring thousands of innocents. Hamas giving up their hostages is outside the ability of the innocent people being massacred. It’s wrong for Israel to use this as a lever.

Nonsense. I accept your solution would work, but it is outside of the control of the innocent civilian people. And saying A will stop killing C if B does something, is not right.

And I am sure lots of Palestinians would support that too.

Again you are conjoining a terrorist organization with a people. There are thousands of Palestinians who do not support Hamas. Unfortunately, they are dying.

It isn’t.

Under international law, you are wrong.

You are still talking as if Gaza=Hamas It doesn’t. We faced exactly the same thing in Northern Ireland. The IRA is not the Irish. They hid amongst the population and continued their terrorist attacks. Are you saying we should have gone in and massacred thousands of innocent Irish in order to rid ourselves of them? Please answer this what is the difference between these 2 conflicts? I suggest nothing. The solution cannot be to attack innocent parties in order to achieve your aim. That is a war crime.

You could use exactly the same argument with the IRA and Irish and blame the Irish people, the same way, sorry but that does not wash with me.

Law enforcement generally has a rule regarding collateral damage, the rule is zero. In a conflict like this one, I think it’s difficult to argue you are targeting the terrorists when you kill orders of magnitude larger of innocent civilians. I can’t give a number but killing more innocent civilians than terrorists rings alarm bells with me.

Apart from your first line, I agree 100%. Remove the strike through and I don’t.

it is wrong to conjoin a terrorist organisation (Hamas) with innocent Palestinian people. Suppose Hamas had disappeared and were hiding in Pattaya, would that make it ok to attack Pattaya and kill 5,000 innocent Thais & Farangs in the hope of killing Hamas? There is no difference, what Hamas has done would not give justification to kill Pattaya residents. I am talking about Israel and innocent Gazan citizens, what does that have to with Hamas & Israel being at odds? Who has the right to bring innocent 3rd parties into the conflict and massacre them in their thousands? Let’s consider scale, suppose Israel dropped a nuke on Gaza, all Hamas would be killed, plus a couple of million innocent civilians. The point I am trying to make is scale is irrelevant, it’s either ok or it isn’t. Doing a little bit doesn’t make it ok.

The difference is intent and scale.

You cannot say Hamas/Palestine, the former is a terrorist group and the latter is a country/innocent people. You must never join the two together, it’s like saying the IRA/Irish.

Absolutely not.

You keep mentioning Hamas and what they have done. Exactly, how does that make the citizens of Gaza complicit in that crime? only if they were complicit would Israel be justified in killing them in their thousands. What Hamas has done is irrelevant in the justification for attacking innocent Gazan civilians. It is for the same reason that the British did not kill the Irish in their thousands, because they were not complicit in what the IRA did.

Actually I do have a solution, I don’t volunteer it because it deflects from the wrong being done by Israel which is what we are discussing, open another thread on alternative solutions and I will be happy to comment. Any solution should leave the Palestinian children without hatred for Israel. This generational hate has to end, and not by genocide.

You are entirely missing the point. What Hamas has done justifies Israel attacking Hamas. Nothing they have done or could do justifies attacking innocent civilians and killing them in their thousands in the hope of wiping out Hamas. Let me give an analogy. The IRA attack the British, The British then go in and massacre thousands of innocent civilians in the hope of eradicating the IRA, this would be equally wrong. Nothing the IRA could do would justify that kind of a massacre. In the law we judge guilty or not guilt on actions only. Provocation may affect sentencing but it does not make an illegal act into a legal one. Gazan civilians are innocent, nothing Hamas has done justifies massacring them in their thousands.

It doesn’t make any difference what Hamas has done, it’s irrelevant, what is important is that Israel doesn’t massacre, thousands of innocent civilians.

I never said there was a magic solution and I won’t be drawn into the task of offering one. What I said was that massacring thousands of innocent civilians, as Israel is doing is wrong. They have to find a better solution.

I don’t bang on about anything, and I never mentioned any magical solution, I simply said what Israel is doing is wrong. I don’t have to offer a solution, that’s not my job, it is up to Israel to devise a solution that isn’t (a) driven by revenge and (b) doesn’t massacre thousands of innocent people. In my initial post, The fact I didn’t comment on Hamas cannot be taken as any kind of tacit approval, nor can it lead to the conclusion that my head is in the sand. I did condemn Hamas when asked my position. What number of Israeli’s massacred or taken prisoner by Hamas justifies them to slaughter thousands of innocent people? 1, 10, 100, 1000, a million? When do reprisals represent justice or revenge? In that context the comments you made about what Hamas did are irrelevant. I would say there is no number that justifies a response that massacres thousands of innocent people. What Hamas has done should have no bearing on innocent people. Israel’s beef is with Hamas, not citizens of Gaza. What is the purpose in asking half the population of Gaza to move into the South, isn’t it likely Hamas will move with them? I am aware most people don’t think so, but I expect Israel to annex Northern Gaza.