History Learner

Well-known member
Listen, I'll be honest I did not read the whole article just the top part. But while Israel did shell a UN compoud with refugees, there was an artillery attack in the vicinity of the compoud. Now the UN has peacekeepers who are suppose to make sure armed forces from BOTH sides stay away so that civillians are able to run to that area and be safe. So unless you can show where in that article Israel knowingly attacked then, Israel did not do anything. and it was the UN's fault for not having adequate protection.

About the only way the UN could've prevented a deliberate artillery strike is to have extended the DMZ 10 miles deep into Israel; i.e. extend it beyond the firing range of shells:

The attack occurred amid heavy fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah during Operation Grapes of Wrath. A United Nations investigation later stated that the Israeli shelling was deliberate,[6][7] based on video evidence showing an Israeli reconnaissance drone over the compound before the shelling. The Israeli government at first denied the existence of the drone, but then said, after being told of the video evidence, that the drone was on a different mission.[7] Israel categorically rejected the findings of the UN report concerning the incident.[8]
 

History Learner

Well-known member
Only if they're idiots.

They are so much better off in Israel, it's just not funny.

Only if you ignore the fact Israel has declared itself an ethno-state favoring Jews over Arabs in terms of rights, and this can't be blamed on Likud either:

Nearly half of Jewish Israelis agree that Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel, and a solid majority (79 percent) maintain that Jews in Israel should be given preferential treatment, according to a Pew Research Center in Israel survey published on Tuesday.​
The poll, with 5,601 in-person interviews of Israeli adults, conducted between October 2014 and May 2015, found that Israeli Jews increasingly believe the West Bank settlements help, rather than hurt, Israel’s security – and most (61%) believe Israel was given by God to the Jewish people.​
Three-quarters of Israeli Jews feel deeply connected to American Jews, but over half feel US policy is not supportive enough of Israel. Meanwhile, support for the two-state solution among Jewish Israelis hasn’t changed considerably in past years (though they are less optimistic than their American counterparts), but among Arab Israelis, it has plummeted.​
And overall, the majority of Israelis identify as political centrists.​
Expulsion of the Arabs
The survey makes no distinction between Palestinian Arabs of the West Bank and citizens of Israel in its question about whether Arabs should be expelled from Israel. And yet, 48% of Jewish Israelis said they were in favor, 46% were opposed, and 6% said they didn’t know.​
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
About the only way the UN could've prevented a deliberate artillery strike is to have extended the DMZ 10 miles deep into Israel; i.e. extend it beyond the firing range of shells:

The attack occurred amid heavy fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah during Operation Grapes of Wrath. A United Nations investigation later stated that the Israeli shelling was deliberate,[6][7] based on video evidence showing an Israeli reconnaissance drone over the compound before the shelling. The Israeli government at first denied the existence of the drone, but then said, after being told of the video evidence, that the drone was on a different mission.[7] Israel categorically rejected the findings of the UN report concerning the incident.[8]
According to the UN's own report, Hezbollah was firing artillery all around from the UN compound.

...Hezbollah fighters fired two or three rockets from a location 350 metres south-east...

...two or three Hezbollah fighters entered the United Nations compound...

... they fired between five and eight rounds of 120 millimetre mortar from a location 220 metres south-west of the centre of the compound... According to witnesses, the mortar was installed there between 1100 and 1200 hours that day, but no action was taken by UNIFIL personnel to remove it. (On 15 April, a Fijian had been shot in the chest as he tried to prevent Hezbollah fighters from firing rockets.)

...a Hezbollah mortar team positioned at a cemetery 170 meters from the compound, which fired a total of eight 120mm mortar rounds...

...Amnesty International said it was also clear that Hezbollah fired a mortar from a position within 200 metres of the periphery of the UN compound...


And those are quotes from an attempt to make it all Israel's fault. That's pretty telling. It certainly doesn't look like they needed a 10KM exclusion zone, more they needed to actually keep Hezbollah artillery away from the camp.
 

King Arts

Well-known member
About the only way the UN could've prevented a deliberate artillery strike is to have extended the DMZ 10 miles deep into Israel; i.e. extend it beyond the firing range of shells:

The attack occurred amid heavy fighting between the Israel Defense Forces and Hezbollah during Operation Grapes of Wrath. A United Nations investigation later stated that the Israeli shelling was deliberate,[6][7] based on video evidence showing an Israeli reconnaissance drone over the compound before the shelling. The Israeli government at first denied the existence of the drone, but then said, after being told of the video evidence, that the drone was on a different mission.[7] Israel categorically rejected the findings of the UN report concerning the incident.[8]
I mean if an armed organization is doing a neutral humanitarian mission. Yes they should be able to maintain a perimeter. I mean if Hezbollah is launching rockets or mortars within 300 meters from the base, that is very bad, either the UN is incompetent or it should not be there(the likely answer since one UN peacekeeper was shot trying to stop them), or they are favoring one side and thus not neutral and valid targets(this is not true since that one UN guy did try to stop them) I mean it would be best if UN forces were strong enough to destroy both sides if they go in their operational area, but you have to understand 300m is very very close, that is well within the range of an AR15.
 

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
Well we can look at Jordan, it's a relatively prosperous middle eastern nation, not on the level of the Gulf states, but it currently isn't in a civil war like Syria, it's king seems to be competent. So what makes you think a Palestinian state would end up turning into shit? Aren't Palestinians related to Jordinians?
Jordan is not prosperous. Jordan has a GDP per capita similar, if not slightly lower, than nearby Egypt.
No one is calling Egypt prosperous, we all know what happened there recently. Of course Jordan is doing far better than Syria, and did so even before SCW, but that's setting a dirt low bar.
In general all the Arab countries in the region that don't have a major natural resource boost are doing poorly, and even the more distinct Lebanon is sliding downwards lately.
Jordan is held together by a shoestring thanks to the tenuous rule of the monarchical dictatorship there. You might want to find a better example.... If there is one to be found.

I would not be surprised at all to see a coup in Jordan in the next decade.
This. Install a sane monarch/dictator that will brutally stomp out any PLO/Hamas/Islamic Jihad attempts at having power and then they will have a chance at being an economic match to Jordan and Egypt by scale. In a 2-5 decades, when the fallout of the conflict settles down.
But if the place ends up being ruled by terrorist-corruptocrats (with balance of these two depending on which flavor they pick), which so far dominate the selection its most likely ruling factions, what chance at prosperity does it have really?
I mean if an armed organization is doing a neutral humanitarian mission. Yes they should be able to maintain a perimeter. I mean if Hezbollah is launching rockets or mortars within 300 meters from the base, that is very bad, either the UN is incompetent or it should not be there(the likely answer since one UN peacekeeper was shot trying to stop them), or they are favoring one side and thus not neutral and valid targets(this is not true since that one UN guy did try to stop them) I mean it would be best if UN forces were strong enough to destroy both sides if they go in their operational area, but you have to understand 300m is very very close, that is well within the range of an AR15.
Pure politics. They don't have the means to take that fight, they aren't supposed to have the means, and even if they did, the UN would be under fairly effective pressure from OIC lobby (57 states in UN votes is a powerful block) to avoid this fight.
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
Pure politics. They don't have the means to take that fight, they aren't supposed to have the means, and even if they did, the UN would be under fairly effective pressure from OIC lobby (57 states in UN votes is a powerful block) to avoid this fight.
People really need to stop pretending that the UN is anything more than a small release valve for minor international disagreements; it was never meant to handle any actual violent conflict.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
Looks like the US Army made its own report on Qana and goes into a lot more detail. It's an interesting read and makes the UN look pretty bad, I'm not surprised Wikipedia ignored it in favor of the more partisan UN report.


So from the top:

The UN report was written by a naval communications specialist with no expertise whatsoever in artillery who did not look at anything but where the shells hit, putting a lot of doubt into the UN report in the first place.

The UN report mentions that some Hezbollah fighters entered the compound but leaves out that they were wearing UN-marked flak jackets and were deploying from the compound to fire artillery, then retreating back inside. That's kinda a big detail to leave out and puts things in a very different light.

Israeli soldiers had a mismarked map that indicated the UN Compound was 100 meters away from its actual position and believed they were safe firing there.

This was compounded by an error in calculating the shells trajectory that made them overshoot the target by 116 meters. This still would have been safe if the UN Compound had been where they thought, 350 meters from the target. However, the combination of the mark being 100 meters off on the map and missing the mark by another 116 meters, when the target was only 170 meters from the compound, caused the shells to hit the UN Compound.
 

History Learner

Well-known member
According to the UN's own report, Hezbollah was firing artillery all around from the UN compound.

...Hezbollah fighters fired two or three rockets from a location 350 metres south-east...

...two or three Hezbollah fighters entered the United Nations compound...

... they fired between five and eight rounds of 120 millimetre mortar from a location 220 metres south-west of the centre of the compound... According to witnesses, the mortar was installed there between 1100 and 1200 hours that day, but no action was taken by UNIFIL personnel to remove it. (On 15 April, a Fijian had been shot in the chest as he tried to prevent Hezbollah fighters from firing rockets.)

...a Hezbollah mortar team positioned at a cemetery 170 meters from the compound, which fired a total of eight 120mm mortar rounds...

...Amnesty International said it was also clear that Hezbollah fired a mortar from a position within 200 metres of the periphery of the UN compound...


And those are quotes from an attempt to make it all Israel's fault. That's pretty telling. It certainly doesn't look like they needed a 10KM exclusion zone, more they needed to actually keep Hezbollah artillery away from the camp.

So, because, they were firing artillery around the compound, the Israelis get to fire on the compound itself?

That's butcher's logic, and still illegal under international law and the rules governing war. Even ignoring all of that, Israel, as a signer to said international agreements, is held to a standard of placing protection of civilian lives to a higher degree. If we believe the Israeli side of the story, then Bennet should be hanged for war crimes.

I mean if an armed organization is doing a neutral humanitarian mission. Yes they should be able to maintain a perimeter. I mean if Hezbollah is launching rockets or mortars within 300 meters from the base, that is very bad, either the UN is incompetent or it should not be there(the likely answer since one UN peacekeeper was shot trying to stop them), or they are favoring one side and thus not neutral and valid targets(this is not true since that one UN guy did try to stop them) I mean it would be best if UN forces were strong enough to destroy both sides if they go in their operational area, but you have to understand 300m is very very close, that is well within the range of an AR15.

How exactly does one provide a perimeter against artillery?
 

History Learner

Well-known member
Yes, I know.

It's still a better place to live as a second class citizen that all that surrounds it. After all, Israel is a First world Nation, richer and safer than all around it.

Israeli Arabs would be astonished to hear this:

On a sunny Thursday morning, I drove with the Israeli human-rights activist Jafar Farah to the coastal Arab village, considered by many to be the poorest town in Israel. It's prone to gang warfare, shootings, stabbings, and arson, and 80% of the 14,000 inhabitants live below the poverty line.​
While most of the focus on Israel in the international news is related to the intractable Israel-Palestine conflict, the situation facing the country's Arab minority, which makes up 21% of the population, is perhaps even more pressing.​
Arabs have a lower life expectancy than Jews, a higher infant-mortality rate, worse infrastructure services, and lower incomes, particularly among those with higher education. Nearly 50% of Arab-Israelis fall below the poverty line, compared to 13% of Jews, according to the most recent report, though that number is an improvement over recent years.​
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
So, because, they were firing artillery around the compound, the Israelis get to fire on the compound itself?

That's butcher's logic, and still illegal under international law and the rules governing war. Even ignoring all of that, Israel, as a signer to said international agreements, is held to a standard of placing protection of civilian lives to a higher degree. If we believe the Israeli side of the story, then Bennet should be hanged for war crimes.
Yeah? If you have combatants deploying from your compound to fire artillery, then retreating back into your compound, your compound's a valid military target. Of course, the UN left that part out to make themselves look better.

That said since we know Israel didn't intentionally fire on the compound, it's moot anyway, the error the UN made was not maintaining a perimeter and letting militants start firing shells less than 200 meters from their compound.

How exactly does one provide a perimeter against artillery?
You don't allow the combatants who are firing the artillery to run inside your compound. You also keep them from setting up weapons platforms less than 200 yards away from your compound.

Israeli Arabs would be astonished to hear this:

On a sunny Thursday morning, I drove with the Israeli human-rights activist Jafar Farah to the coastal Arab village, considered by many to be the poorest town in Israel. It's prone to gang warfare, shootings, stabbings, and arson, and 80% of the 14,000 inhabitants live below the poverty line.​
While most of the focus on Israel in the international news is related to the intractable Israel-Palestine conflict, the situation facing the country's Arab minority, which makes up 21% of the population, is perhaps even more pressing.​
Arabs have a lower life expectancy than Jews, a higher infant-mortality rate, worse infrastructure services, and lower incomes, particularly among those with higher education. Nearly 50% of Arab-Israelis fall below the poverty line, compared to 13% of Jews, according to the most recent report, though that number is an improvement over recent years.​
Jordan's poverty rate is 17.5%. Israel's is 2.5%.
 

Morphic Tide

Well-known member
So, because, they were firing artillery around the compound, the Israelis get to fire on the compound itself?
The Israelis were aiming at the nearby artillery and missed. They can very clearly demonstrate the errors responsible, and the UN can be blamed for doing absolutely nothing, officially, about the artillery being so close that such minor errors resulted in their facility being shelled. And, notably, half the error was someone, at some point, outright misrepresenting their location so the known inaccuracy of the weapons was considered safe when it wasn't.

considered by many to be the poorest town in Israel.
You're making absolute statements when the argument is one of comparisons. Yes, they're worse off than the Jews, this is implicitly accepted by agreeing they're being treated as second-class citizens. Demonstrate these conditions are worse than neighboring Arab countries.

And do note the farce of using literally the worst locale in Israel, one will naturally expect it to be nigh-exclusively of the "disfavored classes". Mind bringing up the numbers for "the poorest town" in the United States to see how terrible that appellation tends to be?
 

LordsFire

Internet Wizard
Israeli Arabs would be astonished to hear this:

On a sunny Thursday morning, I drove with the Israeli human-rights activist Jafar Farah to the coastal Arab village, considered by many to be the poorest town in Israel. It's prone to gang warfare, shootings, stabbings, and arson, and 80% of the 14,000 inhabitants live below the poverty line.​

Gee. An area with a high rate of violent crime and property destruction results in its residents having shitty lives.

How is this a black mark on the Israelis?

Because I somehow doubt you're begging for the Israelis to send in large numbers of armed police to crack down on the crime situation.
 

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
considered by many to be the poorest town in Israel.
“With these small, simple, traditional boats, fishermen can’t get the quantity of fish they need” to make a living, said Sami al-Ali, a member of Jisr’s village council and spokesman for the Joint List, a political faction in Israel made up mostly of Palestinians.

“Today there are only about 20 fishermen families left, it seems, because of the taxes, because of the restrictions, and also there aren’t that many fish in this area anymore.”

Facing a fish scarcity, rising permit costs, increased taxes, limitations on the number of miles small boats can legally venture into the sea, as well as a recent state mandate shortening the fishing season, many of the village’s fishermen have abandoned the trade of their forefathers to work as unskilled labourors in nearby Jewish cities.
So, lemme get this straight. In a rich, developed country, people who try to live as small scale fishermen end up in poverty, struggling with regulations and competition from large scale commercial fishing?
Who would have expected that, that couldn't possibly happen except for some dastardly scheme of oppression by the country's ethnic majority and its government!
We all know that small scale fishermen in rich countries live like rockstars and never have to worry about money, taxes or any limits on fishing, right?
Oh, wait...
Even *commercial* fishermen of (still) locally dominant nationality in the gloriously fair EU worry about... poverty and bankrupcy.
 

King Arts

Well-known member
So, lemme get this straight. In a rich, developed country, people who try to live as small scale fishermen end up in poverty, struggling with regulations and competition from large scale commercial fishing?
Who would have expected that, that couldn't possibly happen except for some dastardly scheme of oppression by the country's ethnic majority and its government!
We all know that small scale fishermen in rich countries live like rockstars and never have to worry about money, taxes or any limits on fishing, right?
Oh, wait...
Even *commercial* fishermen of (still) locally dominant nationality in the gloriously fair EU worry about... poverty and bankrupcy.
Listen you are not an Arab who lives in Israel you don’t know what their struggles are what makes their life difficult. So when people say oh they’ve got it easy they have no reason to complain. It makes you sound ignorant. There is a reason Arabs in Israel are favorable towards Palestinians organization let and it’s not because they are retards who bite the hand of benevolent Israel. I would think an American would understand the concept of honor and self respect that comes with self determination, because the same arguments about how they should quisling for Israel might in the future apply to people in nations that deal with a rising China. If it does become powerful and rich in the future and avoids collapse.
 

Marduk

Well-known member
Moderator
Staff Member
Listen you are not an Arab who lives in Israel you don’t know what their struggles are what makes their life difficult. So when people say oh they’ve got it easy they have no reason to complain. It makes you sound ignorant. There is a reason Arabs in Israel are favorable towards Palestinians organization let and it’s not because they are retards who bite the hand of benevolent Israel.
Of course - its because bonds of shared culture and religion mean something, especially in more traditional societies, which Arabs in Israel and elsewhere are, and those bonds definitely connect them to Palestinians rather than Israelis.
I would think an American would understand the concept of honor and self respect that comes with self determination, because the same arguments about how they should quisling for Israel might in the future apply to people in nations that deal with a rising China. If it does become powerful and rich in the future and avoids collapse.
I'm not American either.
Also, the Arab idea of honor is something similar yet in some core ways different than what westerners see behind the term (no less than Samurai's idea of honor), and also more important than it is in the west nowdays.
There is a somewhat famous essay describing the issue, which is linked and discussed here:

Also i'd like to note that "honor and self respect that comes with self determination" apparently are not sufficient to override dissatisfaction with poverty in Arab world, as all the sovereign states which have experienced the wonders of so called Arab Spring can demonstrate.
 

King Arts

Well-known member
Of course - its because bonds of shared culture and religion mean something, especially in more traditional societies, which Arabs in Israel and elsewhere are, and those bonds definitely connect them to Palestinians rather than Israelis.
Now I don't want to sound too harsh. Maybe it is better to be an arab in Israel as oppose to Jordan, though I doubt it, since a quick skim of wikipedia shows it as being an oasis of stability especially in comparison to it's arab neighbors. But there are Arabs that are part of the IDF, mostly the Bedoin, but still the IDF is leery of letting too many arabs in because they worry they won't be loyal and that's a fair, point and it's also a fair point to wonder maybe the Arabs have decent reasons for their disloyalty. No one except the people in the area who live there can judge each other, Americans shouldn't judge the Palestinians and suck off Israel, but Europe and other nations also shouldn't judge Israel and suck off the Palestinians.

I'm not American either.
Also, the Arab idea of honor is something similar yet in some core ways different than what westerners see behind the term (no less than Samurai's idea of honor), and also more important than it is in the west nowdays.
There is a somewhat famous essay describing the issue, which is linked and discussed here:
https://www.the-sietch.com/index.php?threads/the-worlds-most-toxic-value-system.2506/
Also i'd like to note that "honor and self respect that comes with self determination" apparently are not sufficient to override dissatisfaction with poverty in Arab world, as all the sovereign states which have experienced the wonders of so called Arab Spring can demonstrate.
What are you?

And yes the Arab spring is worthy of contempt. All those idiots who were crying for democracy and freedom from the tyrants, that rule over them, they would sacrifice their own lives now for their children to live the way they did 5 or 10 years ago. Oh Assad bad dictator, no election. Syria used to be a semi stable nation there were hospitals schools, people had jobs, food there were no slave trading wannabe Caliphates. And the people who manage to escape they are now the beggars of the world begging for scraps and entrance into Europe and other nations. The idiots who fell for the democracy propaganda are fools. Though the idiots here in the west who were supporting it are lucky they don't have to live with the mess.
 

LordsFire

Internet Wizard
Listen you are not an Arab who lives in Israel you don’t know what their struggles are what makes their life difficult. So when people say oh they’ve got it easy they have no reason to complain. It makes you sound ignorant. There is a reason Arabs in Israel are favorable towards Palestinians organization let and it’s not because they are retards who bite the hand of benevolent Israel. I would think an American would understand the concept of honor and self respect that comes with self determination, because the same arguments about how they should quisling for Israel might in the future apply to people in nations that deal with a rising China. If it does become powerful and rich in the future and avoids collapse.

I haven't seen anyone here say 'ethnic Arab citizens of Israel have no struggles.'

What I have seen, is you refusing to respond to many cogent points other people have made about how life for Arab Israelis is much better than for Arabs in pretty nearly any Arab-run nation, even when they are in some ways second class citizens within Israel.

To be blunt, I have seen nothing in your posts to suggest you are anything other than a blind believer that 'Palestine good, Israel bad.' Your posts seem to consist of little other than 'look how oppressed the Palestinians and other Arabs are, look how oppressive the Israelis are.'

Or put another way 'If Israelis hurt Palestinians or Arabs, they're justified in doing anything back to them, but no matter what the Palestinians or Arabs do to Israelis, they're never justified in doing anything back.'

What is the root of your oh-so-passionate stance on the Israel/Palestine conflict?
 

King Arts

Well-known member
I haven't seen anyone here say 'ethnic Arab citizens of Israel have no struggles.'

What I have seen, is you refusing to respond to many cogent points other people have made about how life for Arab Israelis is much better than for Arabs in pretty nearly any Arab-run nation, even when they are in some ways second class citizens within Israel.

To be blunt, I have seen nothing in your posts to suggest you are anything other than a blind believer that 'Palestine good, Israel bad.' Your posts seem to consist of little other than 'look how oppressed the Palestinians and other Arabs are, look how oppressive the Israelis are.'

Or put another way 'If Israelis hurt Palestinians or Arabs, they're justified in doing anything back to them, but no matter what the Palestinians or Arabs do to Israelis, they're never justified in doing anything back.'

What is the root of your oh-so-passionate stance on the Israel/Palestine conflict?
Perhaps you should read my posts more closely where one of the first things I did was defend an Israli artillery strike that killed a few hundred or so people and I said the fault lies with the UN for allowing insurgents to use that area to attack.

It may seem like I am very pro Palestine but I'm not, it's just that you and very many American conservatives are very pro Israel and think it can do no wrong, whether from Evangelical belief of them being God's chosen or just going along with the other conservatives. But no Arabs who live in nations that are not in the middle of sectarian conflict like Jordan actually live decently. But if they live in Syria where there is chaos yes then their standard of living goes WAY down.
 

GoldRanger

May the power protect you
Founder
Israeli Arabs would be astonished to hear this:

On a sunny Thursday morning, I drove with the Israeli human-rights activist Jafar Farah to the coastal Arab village, considered by many to be the poorest town in Israel. It's prone to gang warfare, shootings, stabbings, and arson, and 80% of the 14,000 inhabitants live below the poverty line.​
While most of the focus on Israel in the international news is related to the intractable Israel-Palestine conflict, the situation facing the country's Arab minority, which makes up 21% of the population, is perhaps even more pressing.​
Arabs have a lower life expectancy than Jews, a higher infant-mortality rate, worse infrastructure services, and lower incomes, particularly among those with higher education. Nearly 50% of Arab-Israelis fall below the poverty line, compared to 13% of Jews, according to the most recent report, though that number is an improvement over recent years.​
So? That's a comparison between Arabs and Jews within Israel, not between Israeli Arabs and other Arabs in neighboring nations. How about you be honest and make a similar poverty comparison between Arab-majority countries and their own minorities, or even better, similar comparisons in western countries (such as blacks in the US).
 

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