War in Israel

[m65]

To me, the ultimate justification isn’t a theological right to the land, it’s simple survival.

the problem with this justification is that as soon as the reason for the justification is eliminated, u have no right to be here

Somebody starving to death who steals a piece of bread may be acting immorally, but it is better to act immorally than starve to death.

and what right do u, as a jew living the good life in america, have to come and take part in stealing the arab's land?

It was unfair to evict Arabs and steal their homes, but it was probably the only way Jews could’ve survived safely in Israel.

what a sad way to base your national identity. "we really dont belong here, and are morally wrong for being here, but we felt obliged to"
no wonder we are apologizing all day...

[PlatinumGuy]

i am normal. u are crazy. period.

I don't have energy right now to argue with every point you bring up that has nothing to do with what I or anybody else here said, and didn't even read some of your posts.

However, the one thing that stands out to me is your degree of conviction in your beliefs. You would do better for yourself if you accepted that sometimes the truth differs from your natural first impression. There has to be a level of evidence that would suffice for you to abandon a position.

Have a good day.

[m65]

The truth is dearer to me than any position. In almost all major debates there is merit on both sides, but one side is better represented amongst us, so I tend take to defending the other side,

those 2 statements contradict each other

and didn't even read some of your posts.

There has to be a level of evidence that would suffice for you to abandon a position.

if u dont bother hearing the other side's position u definitely have no chance of changing ur mind

However, the one thing that stands out to me is your degree of conviction in your beliefs.

thank u. compliment accepted graciously

Have a good day.

may u as well bro. keep safe.

[PlatinumGuy]

those 2 statements contradict each other
if u dont bother hearing the other side's position u definitely have no chance of changing ur mind

Lol. I have an entire bookcase I haven't read yet either.

[PlatinumGuy]

https://twitter.com/yoavzitun/status/1392037074631598080

https://twitter.com/OrenKessler/status/1392015796281528322

https://twitter.com/ELINTNews/status/1391912661621870595

https://twitter.com/ELINTNews/status/1391913565850906624

(not sure how accurate the numbers are, but the general concept is true)

[PlatinumGuy]

DM Gantz approves IDF's request to mobilize 5,000 reservists.

Gantz & Bibbi have strong political incentive to prolong the conflict, and Hamas probably wants it to end while they can claim they defended Al Aqsa and before consequences are even more severe for their organization and the population they control (on the other hand provoking Israel to inflict further damage helps Hamas win financial and political support).

In the short term, the quicker it dies down the less Jews will be hurt, but in the long term inadequate retailation and lack of deterrent may embolden the enemy to have a looser finger on the trigger while missiles and arms can be upgraded. It's an impossible decision where no human can strike the perfect balance (much less uninformed pundits) - something to think about when davening הָשִׁיבָה שׁוֹפְטֵינוּ כְּבָרִאשׁוֹנָה, וְיוֹעֲצֵינוּ כְּבַתְּחִלָּה, - we are supposed to have prophets and אורים ותומים to consult with in such situations. 

Personally, it's hard to see this subsiding without infantry entering Gaza, which tends to carry the gravest price.

[Happyguy]

3-4 will be in the south. So maybe 7-8 batteries in north and central Israel. Thus around 8x3x20/2= 240 rockets able to be intercepted.

The Israelis know this and therefore will only intercept rockets near crucial facilities, therefore many towns will have to remain undefended.

(not sure how accurate the numbers are, but the general concept is true)

Will Israel let smaller towns such as Sderot and Ashkelon is the south and Metula and Kiryat Shmona in the north go unprotected in order to protect the few rockets that can come to Central Israel/Jerusalem area or the other way around?
In the past, Israel has known to ignore rockets attacks when they are far way from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

[Happyguy]

I don't normally agree with Feiglin but I think this is well worth reading.

The War Ethics of Benny Gantz by Moshe Feiglin

“Every Jewish mother should know that she has deposited her sons in the hands of generals who prefer enemy lives (and the foreign forums where they can brag about that) to the lives of her children.
Nadav Halamish (who is running in the Zehut primaries) discovered this 2015 speech by Benny Gantz, the Chief of Staff of the Operation Protective Edge defeat – currently running for election at the head of a new party.

In his speech, Gantz brags that despite the fact that shots were being fired relentlessly at Israel’s Golani soldiers from the Wafa hospital (which had become Hamas HQ) in the Saj’aiyah neighborhood of Gaza, and despite the fact that the IDF had already spoken with the hospital/Hamas HQ administrators to ensure that there were no civilians there – when he finally decided to shoot back at the hospital, Gantz ordered to hold fire just a bit longer in order to check with the hospital once again to ensure that there were no civilians there.

In other words, the IDF High Command skewed the front line soldiers’ element of surprise, made it possible for the enemy to prepare itself well for the Golani attack and then – after repeated warnings, the Chief of Staff did not take advantage of his immense firepower superiority and instead of turning the hornets’ nest into dust by bombing it from the air, preferred to send the Golani infantrymen into the fire.

“Woe is to the evil person and woe is to his neighbor,” says the Jewish fighting ethic.

The Geneva Convention also places the responsibility for the death of civilians who were used as human shields upon the shoulders of the side that used them as such.

But Gantz decided to be more Catholic than the Pope.

Gantz, motivated by different “ethics”, fashionable and expedient, explicitly admits in his speech that although he had warned the evil terrorists’ neighbor, he again constrained the momentum of the battle.

“And we took the risk on the Golani Brigade” brags the Israeli general Gantz.

For Gantz, a dead IDF soldier is better than a photo of a destroyed hospital.

The farcical Chief of Staff of Operation Protective Edge, repeats that to the best of his knowledge, there were no Gazan civilians hurt there.

No Gazan civilians were hurt.

But a Golani soldier was…

Media reports from that battle (a Google search for “Waffa hospital Golani” shows reports in Hebrew on Mako, YNET and Walla) quote the IDF spokesman who said that there were enemy command centers and arms stockpiles in the hospital and that they were shooting automatic and anti-tank weapons at our forces “over many long days”.

That same Google search also brings us a very detailed description of the battle on the website of the Golani 13th battalion: “The El-Wafa hospital served in effect as Hamas HQ, according to intelligence…150 meters from the El-Wafa hospital, from which they were shooting ceaselessly…the fighters…returned fire…Shawn Carmeli, a machine gunner by military training, a lone soldier…who made Aliyah to Israel at the age of 16…realizes that the machine gun ammunition belt on top of his APC was stuck…and it had to be fixed in order to continue to fire at the terrorists across the road from the hospital…Shawn…gets out of the APC to fix the stuck ammunition belt…doesn’t succeed…around him shots are being fired from all sides but Carmeli goes out again…The Unit Commander asks him not to expose his entire body, but Carmeli answers him immediately, ‘I am doing it quickly and will finish’…The Unit Commander goes out to help…The Unit Commander comes back in but Carmeli doesn’t return with him…it took about a minute to pull him back in…Carmeli was hit by enemy fire and killed…the first casualty of the Golani Brigade in the operation”.

Shawn Nissim Carmeli was 21 when he fell.

David Ben Gurion formulated the upper ethical bar required of an IDF commander: “It is not enough for the commander to know his work. He must love people, the life of his soldier must be dear to him…Every Hebrew mother should know that she has deposited the fate of her son in the hands of commanders who are worthy of it.”

The values of the distorted “fighting ethics” that the offshoots of the New Israel Fund have embedded by means of commanders like Benny Gantz and his friends in the IDF have already brought about the deaths of hundreds of soldiers and perhaps even more.

My son, Avraham, a cited soldier in one of the infantry brigades, could not remain silent. About half a year ago, he publicly condemned this phenomenon and was dismissed from his position.

Was Benny Gantz worthy of commanding my son? Your sons?

Is a person who preferred the unbroken walls of the Waffa hospital/Hamas terror command over the life of Shawn Carmeli, may God avenge his blood – worthy of being an Israeli leader?

And one last word –

The Defense Minister during Operation Protective Edge was Bogie Ya’alon. The PM was Binyamin Netanyahu.

Their responsibility for the abandonment of our sons is no less than Gantz’s.

It is even greater.

[PlatinumGuy]

Will Israel let smaller towns such as Sderot and Ashkelon is the south and Metula and Kiryat Shmona in the north go unprotected in order to protect the few rockets that can come to Central Israel/Jerusalem area or the other way around?
In the past, Israel has known to ignore rockets attacks when they are far way from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

These decisions are extremely classified so the enemy doesn't know where the gaps are, but obviously attacks on Tel Avid and Jlem aren't the same as attacks on border towns.

Preserving human life isn't the only guiding principle, there is also economic impact and national morale (one of the main reasons to French folded in WW2, as was predicted before the war).

It is probably true Israel will also do more to protect Jlem and TA out of pride in zionist sovereignty, which many (including myself) find unworthy.

[PlatinumGuy]

I don't normally agree with Feiglin but I think this is well worth reading.

It is a completely dishonest straw man piece.

Feiglin is very well aware that Gantz and the Israeli military didn't risk soldiers lives out of moral concern for Palestinian life but strategic necessity of international pressure that an attack on a hospital would cause. There is plenty of room for debate if and how much Israel should take that pressure into account, but pretending the motive is different accomplishes nothing but winning the author platitude from people who don't know better.

Ironically, many times the Israeli Left did more to resist international pressure than the Israeli Right. It was Ben Gurion who coined the term 'Um Shmum' about the UN and instituted Israel's longstanding strategy of delaying response to outside inquirers to buy precious time and set irrevocable facts on the ground.

[Happyguy]

Feiglin is very well aware that Gantz and the Israeli military didn't risk soldiers lives out of moral concern for Palestinian life but strategic necessity of international pressure that an attack on a hospital would cause. There is plenty of room for debate if and how much Israel should take that pressure into account, but pretending the motive is different accomplishes nothing but winning the author platitude from people who don't know better.

That policy has been remarkably successful over the years . 2688 Israelis were killed in the Yom Kippur War in '76. Golda Meir was warned that the Arab armies were gathering forces but refused to take a pre-emptive strike because she wanted the world to view Israel as a victim not as an aggressor. Had she acted earlier, hundreds if not thousands of lives would have been saved.

Israel was pressured to end its offensive by against Lebanon by Reagan after a Christian militia massacred dozens in Palestinian refugee camps. If they would have continued they would have been able to wipe out the PLO forever meaning no First Intafada, Oslo, Second Intafada etc.

[PlatinumGuy]

That policy has been remarkably successful over the years . 2688 Israelis were killed in the Yom Kippur War in '76. Golda Meir was warned that the Arab armies were gathering forces but refused to take a pre-emptive strike because she wanted the world to view Israel as a victim not as an aggressor. Had she acted earlier, hundreds if not thousands of lives would have been saved.

Israel was pressured to end its offensive by against Lebanon by Reagan after a Christian militia massacred dozens in Palestinian refugee camps. If they would have continued they would have been able to wipe out the PLO forever meaning no First Intafada, Oslo, Second Intafada etc.

It depends how you look at it. Israel has incredible prosperity from international trade and manages to crush boycott movements like BDS. Would it be the same without taking foreign pressure into account, or would we CH"V find ourselves untouchable pariahs like NK, Iran, Sudan, apartheid SA, and other unsavory regimes the world despises?

I'm not talking about right or wrong, just questioning what would lead to overall superior outcomes. There are strong arguments for both sides, so dismissing them out of hand isn't fair. 

[Happyguy]

It depends how you look at it. Israel has incredible prosperity from international trade and manages to crush boycott movements like BDS. Would it be the same without taking foreign pressure into account, or would we CH"V find ourselves untouchable pariahs like NK, Iran, Sudan, apartheid SA, and other unsavory regimes the world despises?

I'm not talking about right or wrong, just questioning what would lead to overall superior outcomes. There are strong arguments for both sides, so dismissing them out of hand isn't fair.

You were probably one of the scaremongers that when the US moved it's embassy to Jerusalem and recognized it as the capital of Israel that the third intifada would start.

Would Israel be in a worse position now if Begin in the '80s would have annexed Judea and Samaria or Netanyahu Area B & C? CNN, NYT and BBC would follow it for a few days and then move on to something else.

Are you against all the Israeli sabotage of the Iranian nuclear deal? Maybe Israel should withdraw from the green line and try to get on the side of BDS and Omar Barghouti. But wait a second, isn't he against all Israeli settlement between the (Jordan) river and the (Mediterranean) sea.

[PlatinumGuy]

It’s like two people are on a football field and one pulls out a knife and then the other one pulls out a gun and chases him off the field....

Of course, the million dollar is who pulled the knife out first. It goes back to around ~1860. The Jews say the Arabs started and the Arabs say the Jews started.

The one thing everybody agrees on is that the Turkish controlled Israel, which had under 100k Jews and ~700k++ Arabs who coexisted peacefully. The tensions were created by Jewish immigration that slowly but surely took the demographic majority, of course that doesn't mean there was anything wrong with it (although some of it was illegal), but that's how the conflict started.

It is generally accepted the Arabs were the first to commit mass murder (in 1919 and 1929), but they use your defense - they were justified to pull out guns because Jews pulled out knives first in smaller incidents. Their population size was also 5-10x larger so it is expected that more violence would come from their side.

 

[PlatinumGuy]

You were probably one of the scaremongers that when the US moved it's embassy to Jerusalem and recognized it as the capital of Israel that the third intifada would start.

And you probably have a selective memory that forgot how the second intifada that cost hundreds of lives started - Sharon's provocative Temple Mount visit.

Would Israel be in a worse position now if Begin in the '80s would have annexed Judea and Samaria or Netanyahu Area B & C?

Yes - instead of having 10-15 Arab Kennset members you would have 30+, and your Jewish majority would be threatened.

Maybe Israel should withdraw from the green line

Ironically, I believe there is no secular party or movement that advocates for that - only extremist charedim like Satmer and Neturi Karta.

For me and my rebbeim, if it would be hypothetically be feasible for all Jews in Israel to emigrate to the US (or anyplace safe), it would indeed be preferable. Jewish sovereignty of Israel isn't a value to us at all, certainly not one that justifies the price of 50k dead Jews (and counting). We do accept it is unfeasible to leave Israel and so the Israeli state was probably the safest option given the circumstances.

Omar Barghouti. But wait a second, isn't he against all Israeli settlement between the (Jordan) river and the (Mediterranean) sea.

Just as many Jews are against all Arab settlement between the river and sea.

[Happyguy]

And you probably have a selective memory that forgot how the second intifada that cost hundreds of lives started - Sharon's provocative Temple Mount visit.

Quote from the Mitchell Report

The Sharon visit did not cause the “Al-Aqsa Intifada.” But it was poorly timed and the provocative effect should have been foreseen; indeed, it was foreseen by those who urged that the visit be prohibited. More significant were the events that followed: The decision of the Israeli police on September 29 to use lethal means against the Palestinian demonstrators; and the subsequent failure, as noted above, of either party to exercise restraint

Yes - instead of having 10-15 Arab Kneset members you would have 30+, and your Jewish majority would be threatened.

I meant the Jewish Settlements (what is called area B & C today). Otherwise I would advocate for the annexation of area A today as well.

Ironically, I believe there is no secular party or movement that advocates for that - only extremist charedim like Satmer and Neturi Karta.
For me and my rebbeim, if it would be feasible for all Jews in Israel to emigrate to the US or anyplace safe, it would indeed be preferable.

Who are your Rebbeim?

Jewish sovereignty of Israel isn't a value to us at all, certainly not one that justifies the price of 50k dead Jews (and counting). We do accept it is unfeasible to leave Israel and so the Israeli state is probably the safest option overall.

Would you tell people to stop making Aliya as it is feasible not to move to Israel from abroad?

[drosenberg88429]

https://twitter.com/simonerzim/status/1391869749303316483

The truth hurts.

They are not singing this about peaceful Palestinians having a calm family dinner in their village. They are singing this about a group of rioters and lynchers that are in the midst of attacking any Jew in sight, from police to civilian, with murderous intentions, whilst shooting missiles at civilian populations. Captioning that as "genocidal intentions" is twisted yellow journalism at best.

[PlatinumGuy]

They are not singing this about peaceful Palestinians having a calm family dinner in their village... Captioning that as "genocidal intentions" is twisted yellow journalism at best.

I don't want to elaborate further on a public forum.

[PlatinumGuy]

Quote from the Mitchell Report

The Mitchell report, which isn't accepted anyways, removes the blame from Sharon and instead places it on Israeli police aggression. Same difference

I meant the Jewish Settlements (what is called area B & C today). Otherwise I would advocate for the annexation of area A today as well.

It's the same problem further down the line. Annexing the Jewish settlements breaks the territorial continuity and harms the likelihood of establishing a separate Palestinian state, and ultimately the only alternative is incorporating the Arabs.

Despite what Right wing hacks will have you think, Israel's lack of annexation isn't for fear of foreign criticism, but because it's against Israel interest, which is why it never happened even under Trump's blanche cart support

Who are your Rebbeim?

The Chazon Ish and R' Shach.

Would you tell people to stop making Aliya as it is feasible not to move to Israel from abroad?

It depends on the individual circumstances as it won't have an impact on the Klal. I definitely wouldn't advocate for it with the same zeal as the zionists (religious and not religious).

[drosenberg88429]

ISRAEL: BREAKING: Two Israeli’s were killed, two more were seriously hurt after a rocket fired from Gaza hit a residential building in the city of Ashkelon.