On backdrop of reports of progress made in negotiations with Palestinians, prominent religious Zionist rabbis call on public to say special prayer 'for wholeness of the land'.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4436120,00.html

Thereby putting themselves in the same stable as Islamist jihadists who do not want peace. Very sad!

in my view more ridiculous than sad.

When they start purposely targeting civilians for death they will be in the same stable as Islamist jihadists. Right now, they are just running their mouths. There is a big difference.

Anyone would think they feel they have a divine right to the land.

Anyone would think they feel they have a divine right to the land.

it is a wellknown fact that the LORD himself issued the "chanote"

When they start purposely targeting civilians for death they will be in the same stable as Islamist jihadists. Right now, they are just running their mouths. There is a big difference.

They leave that to the IDF

An ignorant claim indeed. Israel has the lowest civilian to combatant casualty ratio in history in the setting of combating terrorism.

Testifying before the United Nations, Col. Richard Kemp, a British commander, stated that:

Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population...

The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.

Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes...

More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.

The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls.

which enabled 1 million Gaza inhabitants to spent those troubled times in Eilat, Cannes, Monte Carlo, Las Vegas and Miami Beach because the "non-targeted" areas were fully booked.

Blame that on Hamas - elected by the Palestinians themselves.

"More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians."

More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.[/i]

I'm not sure the term "deliberately tried to sacrifice" is correct.

More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.[/i]

I'm not sure the term "deliberately tried to sacrifice" is correct.

You'll have to take that up with British commander Col. Richard Kemp, but the fact that Hamas uses their own people as human shields is not exactly a secret.

in my view more ridiculous than sad.

It's sacrilegious is what it is. Shalom, my ass!

An ignorant claim indeed. Israel has the lowest civilian to combatant casualty ratio in history in the setting of combating terrorism.

While not denying that Hamas' blatant disregard for the well-being of civilians by operating from densely populated residential areas is unforgivable, I am intrigued about your civilian to combatant casualty ratio claim.

I am sure it is not an "ignorant claim", but do you have some numbers or references to back it up?

Data from either the Cast Lead or Pillar of Defence operations in Gaza is not that robust and definitions of combatant or non-combatant are somewhat vague for obvious reasons.

During Cast Lead Dec 2008-Jan 09 IDF figures show 709 Palestinian combatants killed for 295 non-combatants. B'Tselem figures show 352 combatants, 759 non-combatants killed plus 52 non-defined and 248 police killed inside their police stations in the opening stages of the conflict.

http://www.btselem.org/statistics/fatalities/during-cast-lead/by-date-of-event

For Pillar of Defence Nov 2012 the IDF state 120 Palestinian combatant dead and 57 non-combatants. B'Tselem 62 combatants and 87 non-combatants killed. Who is right?

Before you start jumping up and down about leftish, IDF-hating NGOs such as B'Tselem have a read below:

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Legal-sea-change-BTselem-IDF-positions-closer-than-ever-312580

By contrast some well-reviewed data from N.Ireland (see below):

http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/crosstabs.html

This shows that the UK security forces killed almost exactly the same number of paramilitaries as civilians (c.185) between 1969-2001. Some of the previously civilian deaths have now been claimed by the paramilitaries as being members since the report was published.

Paramilitaries (both republican and loyalist) killed 1596 civilians and 1123 members of the security forces in the same time period.

I am not saying that any civilian death is excusable just quoting this data as an interesting baseline given the level of reliability of the NI numbers.

Implying that Israel purposely targets civilians is ignorant indeed. There is no maybe about it.

This article goes into the numbers concerning civilians killed as "collateral damage" when targeting terrorists - a very different thing - which, unfortunately can not be completely avoided when terrorists operate in residential areas.

Israel's ratio is far better than that of the United States, Great Britain, Russia or any other country combating terrorism. Yet this remarkable improvement has hardly been reported by the international press. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/targeted-killing-is-worki_b_79616.html?

Dershowitz may well be right, UG, but the outlet he chooses is hardly one known for accurate reporting.

The original story in this thread is a disgrace. Freedom of speech is all very well, but not when it goes against the speakers' national interest.

Implying that Israel purposely targets civilians is ignorant indeed. There is no maybe about it.

This article goes into the numbers concerning civilians killed as "collateral damage" when targeting terrorists - a very different thing - which, unfortunately can not be completely avoided when terrorists operate in residential areas.

Israel's ratio is far better than that of the United States, Great Britain, Russia or any other country combating terrorism. Yet this remarkable improvement has hardly been reported by the international press. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/targeted-killing-is-worki_b_79616.html?

Please point out where I implied that the IDF is intentionally targeting civilians...you might be pushed to back up that claim.

Killing civilians evan as "collateral damage' does little to benefit the perpetrator whether it be a misguided missile in Gaza City or trigger-happy Paras in 1972 Bogside. Furthermore those damaged even collaterally are somebody's children etc....

Still not sure how you or Dershowitz can back up the paramilitary:civilian ratio supremacy claim. I quoted you the data from Cast Lead and Pillar of Peace, they seem to paint a somewhat different ratio to that claimed by Dershowitz.

I am not trying to denigrate the job the IDF has to do, but if you are going to make claims that they do it better than anybody else whilst killing fewer innocent civilians it would be helpful if you had the numbers to back it up.

Operating under relatively tough Rules of Engagement can be tough at times but it does help to minimize the mishaps and tragedies that can occur in pressured situations, as my data from N.Ireland underline. Furthermore they do not necessarily mean that you lose the campaign as recent history has seen and all wars/conflicts in the end have to be settled politically rather than militarily.

Implying that Israel purposely targets civilians is ignorant indeed. There is no maybe about it.

Please point out where I implied that the IDF is intentionally targeting civilians...you might be pushed to back up that claim.

I was replying to a post by Mossfin that strongly implied it and you jumped in and said the you were "not sure that it was an ignorant claim".

Again, implying that the IDF purposely targets civilians is ignorant. There is no maybe about it.

The original story in this thread is a disgrace. Freedom of speech is all very well, but not when it goes against the speakers' national interest.

I'm pretty sure that every country on earth has citizens that disagree with policies that the majority consider to be the national interest. That is why it is called freedom of speech.

Implying that Israel purposely targets civilians is ignorant indeed. There is no maybe about it.

Please point out where I implied that the IDF is intentionally targeting civilians...you might be pushed to back up that claim.

I was replying to a post by Mossfin that strongly implied it and you jumped in and said the you were "not sure that it was an ignorant claim".

Again, implying that the IDF purposely targets civilians is ignorant. There is no maybe about it.

If you reread the post by me that you refer to, you will see that the "claim" I was referring to was your claim that the IDF had the highest combatant:non-combatant death ratio. I even kindly suggested that your claim was most probably not an ignorant one as I was sure you have the data to substantiate it.

So just to recap I did not say or imply that the IDF deliberately targeted non-combatants.

Still waiting for you to substantiate your claim.....

Play nicely..!

Huh? I already substantiated my statement. You do not accept Dershowitz's numbers and I think that they are accurate. It is pretty simple really.

The original story in this thread is a disgrace. Freedom of speech is all very well, but not when it goes against the speakers' national interest.

I'm pretty sure that every country on earth has citizens that disagree with policies that the majority consider to be the national interest. That is why it is called freedom of speech.

Not every country on earth is at war; Israel, to all intents and purposes, is.

The original story in this thread is a disgrace. Freedom of speech is all very well, but not when it goes against the speakers' national interest.

I'm pretty sure that every country on earth has citizens that disagree with policies that the majority consider to be the national interest. That is why it is called freedom of speech.

Not every country on earth is at war; Israel, to all intents and purposes, is.

not every country on earth keeps on stealing since decades areas of land and tries to justify it with all kinds of ridiculous reasons and, last not least, with "free speech".

Maybe countries that have stolen the land themselves should stop attacking Israel and giving them such a good excuse to take it away from them.

Maybe countries that have stolen the land themselves should stop attacking Israel and giving them such a good excuse to take it away from them.

The problem is really that, until the end of the first world war, the whole area had been in the Ottoman Empire. There were no real borders to the various divisions within the OE, it was just tribal areas and garrisons placed in strategic forts.

In their method (followed by Britain and other Empire builders) of divide-and-rule, various religious groups were tolerated, various ethnic groups were tolerated, but Islam was the 'umbrella' religion that the Ottomans encouraged. Jewish communities around Sfot, Kenneret and Jerusalem were settled in the area now known as Israel, but other groups of Jews were tolerated in Yemen and Ethiopia, even in Saudi Arabia.

Christian centres in Egypt, Syria and Jerusalem were also tolerated, and both Sunni and Shia moslems, with all their sub-sects, thrived.

However no one group was favoured above any other, the ruling Caliphs were nominal Moslems, although they ignored most of the Koranic laws, especially with regard to marriage, inheritance, vanity, opulence and so on.

After WWI the British and French basically carved the Middle East up between them - France having more influence in the Northern sphere, Britain towards the South. Borders were drawn and areas given to the client princes/kings/sharifs/other resistance leaders who had helped overthrow the Turks. These borders and rulers were not natural results of history, but impositions from Western European politicians who knew little of the Middle East and cared even less.

Thus we can look at the people who won the 'War to end all Wars' and see how really disastrous they were.

The American leaders, although only in the war for a year, insisted on really punitive terms for Germany's surrender and refused to relax them, thus directly precipitating Hitler's rise to power and the Second World War, while the British and French leaders gave us the impossible task of settling the Middle East problems.

Never let politicians get their hands on the levers of power.

Maybe countries that have stolen the land themselves should stop attacking Israel and giving them such a good excuse to take it away from them.

The problem is really that, until the end of the first world war, the whole area had been in the Ottoman Empire. There were no real borders to the various divisions within the OE, it was just tribal areas and garrisons placed in strategic forts.

In their method (followed by Britain and other Empire builders) of divide-and-rule, various religious groups were tolerated, various ethnic groups were tolerated, but Islam was the 'umbrella' religion that the Ottomans encouraged. Jewish communities around Sfot, Kenneret and Jerusalem were settled in the area now known as Israel, but other groups of Jews were tolerated in Yemen and Ethiopia, even in Saudi Arabia.

Christian centres in Egypt, Syria and Jerusalem were also tolerated, and both Sunni and Shia moslems, with all their sub-sects, thrived.

However no one group was favoured above any other, the ruling Caliphs were nominal Moslems, although they ignored most of the Koranic laws, especially with regard to marriage, inheritance, vanity, opulence and so on.

After WWI the British and French basically carved the Middle East up between them - France having more influence in the Northern sphere, Britain towards the South. Borders were drawn and areas given to the client princes/kings/sharifs/other resistance leaders who had helped overthrow the Turks. These borders and rulers were not natural results of history, but impositions from Western European politicians who knew little of the Middle East and cared even less.

Thus we can look at the people who won the 'War to end all Wars' and see how really disastrous they were.

The American leaders, although only in the war for a year, insisted on really punitive terms for Germany's surrender and refused to relax them, thus directly precipitating Hitler's rise to power and the Second World War, while the British and French leaders gave us the impossible task of settling the Middle East problems.

Never let politicians get their hands on the levers of power.

Unless you are looking at single nation/single island (ish) set-ups (eg Australia, Madagascar, Cuba), all international boundaries are human constructs (and even islands such as Borneo, Ireland, New Guinea, Cyprus, Timor, Hispaniola etc are not immune from this). With the exception of South Sudan all recent international boundary changes are a step back in time (eg Eritrea, Slovakia) or the deconstruction of over-arching entities (eg former Yugoslav or Soviet Socialist Republics).

The redrawing of boundaries is the ultimate Pandora's Box which would wreak havoc on almost all continents.

Re Israel & Palestine we have the original Partition which should serve as the basis of negotiations for any meaningful, long-term resolution of that particular conundrum. Is it perfect, would all sides be happy? Obviously not, but that's what negotiation and compromise is all about.

Huh? I already substantiated my statement. You do not accept Dershowitz's numbers and I think that they are accurate. It is pretty simple really.

Without wishing to flog the deceased equine any further the claim of the IDF being the organization with the least collateral damage according to Dershowitz and operating a 1:30 innocent:bad guy ratio of kills does not stack up [ against even the IDF's own figures} for its most recent Gaza operations (Cast Lead 709:295 & Pillar of Peace120:57 bad guy:good guy), where it claims a innocent:bad guy kill ratio of of just over 1:2. Other organizations *(eg B'tselem) put the ratio at a far less favourable level and one worse than the Brits managed in NI where the "oops" to "player" ratio was almost on a par.

So who has the wrong numbers Dershowitz or the IDF?

No organization or individual is perfect or immune from screw ups, and the best ratio is always 0:0......Doesn't require appeasement or being devoid of spine, it just requires the desire to deal with people you may fundamentally dislike or distrust for the benefit of all.

[...]

Re Israel & Palestine we have the original Partition which should serve as the basis of negotiations for any meaningful, long-term resolution of that particular conundrum. Is it perfect, would all sides be happy? Obviously not, but that's what negotiation and compromise is all about.

Unfortunately the words 'negotiation' and 'compromise' seem to have far different dictionary definitions in the various dictionaries that would be involved in the establishing of any meaningful, long-term resolution of this Middle Eastern conundrum.

There's the Israeli dictionary, the Palestinian dictionary, the neighbouring Arab states dictionaries, the US dictionary, the Russian dictionary, various European dictionaries, a UN dictionary (where all words and phrases are interchangeable) and lastly (and least) dictionaries drawn up by various apologists for the Palestinians, plus the Tony Bliar instant phrase book. None of these has any correlation with any other, thus the reason that the Tower of Babel was sited in the Middle East.

Re Israel & Palestine we have the original Partition which should serve as the basis of negotiations for any meaningful, long-term resolution of that particular conundrum.

Originally, Jordan was meant to be the Palestinian homeland and the rest was to go to the Jews. The Arabs wanted it all and started violent attacks to get it until the Jews began fighting back. Starting with Jordan for the Palestinians and the rest for the Jews should be the basis of negotiations for any meaningful, long-term resolution of that particular conundrum, if there is any attempt to be fair, but, of course, that is not going to happen.

Re Israel & Palestine we have the original Partition which should serve as the basis of negotiations for any meaningful, long-term resolution of that particular conundrum.

Originally, Jordan was meant to be the Palestinian homeland and the rest was to go to the Jews. The Arabs wanted it all and started violent attacks to get it until the Jews began fighting back. Starting with Jordan for the Palestinians and the rest for the Jews should be the basis of negotiations for any meaningful, long-term resolution of that particular conundrum, if there is any attempt to be fair, but, of course, that is not going to happen.

Both King Hussein and King Abdullah have been very good friends to the West.

They have been swamped by Palestinian terrorists seeking safe bases and retreats from their targets, and have co-operated with the West in trying to get them out. If we now dumped a few million more Palestinians, unwilling to go there in the first place, how could we expect any further respect or help from the Jordanians? The whole country would become a terror republic, with legal rights to promote hatred and discord throughout the Middle East.

King Abdullah is a man on a tightrope and I for one do not want to kick him off.