Dutchman returns Holocaust medal

A desperate attempt by the media to belittle Hamas war crimes now that they can no longer be denied outright. You are not to fire from built up civillian areas - period! Gaza doesn't lack open agricultural areas but, they were the least hit.

 

If a whole neighborhood has been turned into a fortified region, why not? And curiously damage is clearly concentrated on such areas

http://www.israellycool.com/2014/08/24/assessing-the-ocha-gaza-crisis-atlas-2014-report/

With regard to collateral damage: The US/UN COIN in Iraq and Afghanistan cost three to five civillian lives for every insurgent killed. In case of Gaza the ratio is around 1:1. The lowest in any such conflict around the world!

 

I don't believe a word of that. Once you pick up the AK lying next to the dead guy, he's a "civilian." The problem with the UN, various humanitarian groups and the media is that they actually accept the claims of groups like Hamas and Al Qaeda as being based on fact. Obviously, civilians do get killed, but the great majority of those "civilians" are insurgents.

"The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea." Mao

 

Since the US and other Coallition partners in Afghanistan were reimbursing the families for any civilians killed there were often claims of more fatalities than existed as well. This went as far as actually digging the graves and burrying a goat or some such as proff of the "fatality".

When one looks at Afghanistan quotes like this bring that to question as well:
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/afghan/articles/20130716.aspx

I can't see the Coalition forces killing that high a ratio of civilians to terrorist in Iraq either although if you count all civilian casualties perhpas the ratio could get that high as there was a lot of "civilian" on civilian violence at times in Iraq.

 

Why wouldn't the teachers or someone tell Israel there are missiles in their school/ neighborhood? ..If they know Israel will smash them if an attack originates from their vicinity, why not make a phone call to try and save lives/property. Then IAF could use low collateral weapons in a preemtive attack.
Middle East problem solved. That was easy. Next.

 

Well they often are stored in one place and used in another. So there may not be much time between when the weapons are moved into position and when they are used.
Then Palestenians are taught from an early age the Israel has no right to exist see:
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20140915.aspx
Then there's the fact that Hamas tends to execute anyone they think might have "dropped a dime" on them.
There's also the fact that if they are storing a lot of missiles in the basement of your apartment building even a "low collateral" weapon probably will result in the destruction of the building. Afterall rocket fuel and warheads or even mortar ammunition can produce some pretty significant secondaries. Look at what happened to Hood or Arizona. The weapons that hit them produced a reaction out of all porportion to the explosive force they actually contained.

 

Like the car accident that it is, there is a share of blame. The article above mentions no fault at all towards Israel...Of the two, Israel gets my vote. Not by a huge margin. They ain't perfect.

 

I am in agreement with that assesement.

 

The Israelis dropped leaflets, send texts, called people on the phone, fired a 'knock on the roof rocket'(no warhead) and even then often aborted strikes when the human shields got too much in the way.

US and UN troops did not go nearly that far.

Aside from a few westerners all UNRWA personell are locals and by a huge margin supporters or even active members of Hamas. Especially in the schools. The Hamas list won 10 out of 12 seats or so in the one and only election for teacher's trade unions.

 

There were studies done (ignored by the media) on civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan comparing the claimed civilian casualties against the demographics of the population. In any population, the percentage of females is going to be about 50%, and then another percentage of children and old people outside the age to fight. So, you would expect "civilian" casualties to roughly reflect that overall demographic. They don't. They're not even close. Overwhelmingly, the claimed "civilian" casualties were young men 18 to 30(ish). I point out again, that once you pick up Abdul's rifle and ammo belt, he becomes a civilian. He may also be a goat herder in that village by day and have a wife and two kids, but that doesn't he mean he wasn't an insurgent carrying a rifle when the missile hit.

Similar numbers are showing up in Gaza and repeated without question by the UN, humanitarian groups and the media. The claimed "civilians" don't match the demographic, but are heavily weighted towards young men of fighting age. It's propaganda, pure and simple.

I'll repeat (if I must) that actual civilians do get killed and that's unfortunate, but if we want an informed opinion we'd do best to dig a little deeper rather than accept the media propaganda coming straight from Hamas or other Jihad groups.

This is going to come up again in the next few weeks and months. Western forces are going to start whacking ISIL/ISIS groups and those groups are going to feed propaganda to the media claiming the people killed are civilians. Don't accept the media propaganda. Dig around and get the truth.

 

Let the whacking begin...The Whackening.
After assessing elldubya's's agreement with my assertion, I agree with his assessment.