[SuperhansFavouriteAlsatian]

Why do you think that they're doing it, then? What do they gain from killing so many innocent people?

[Grape190190]

I think dead bodies don't play well for incumbent political parties...

[UniOfLife]

(Original post by Grape190190)
Oh please. Can we not go back to UoL-broken-record-ignore-what-you-say-over-and-over tactics? I've repeatedly said that the virtue of an international peace-keeping force is that the force they use is likely to be proportional and objective. Rocket attacks killing a few Israelis isn't going turn Gaza into a killing-field.

Better do this quick before you drive me crazy again.

For the last time. All I'm doing is pointing out that many people have spent a long time condemning Israel for occupying Southern Lebanon and Gaza and yet the "solution" to the problems that we seem to have come up with is to do precisely that - occupy Southern Lebanon and Gaza.

Regardless of how much force will be needed to ensure the cessation of rocket attacks on Israel or how "disproportionate" the response of Israel is, the plain fact remains that we will have condemned their occupation only to replace it with our own.

(Original post by Grape190190)
You can't act as if it wasn't an all out civil war; you can't claim that it wasn't Fatah who were defying the democratic will of the people; and you can't act as if it wasn't an attempted coup instigated by the U.S. These things are true and we know them to be true. What do democratically elected governments do when people try to over-throw them? They put the damn rebellion down.

And, if I understand correctly, Hamas didn't seize control of the executive until Abass arbitrarily decided to add an extra year onto his term of office. I don't really know what his excuse was, and I don't really understand why Hamas just seized the office instead of running an election, but he wasn't deposed until he had completed his original term.

Well, since Abbass was elected President in Jan 2005 and Hamas seized executive control in June 2007 either they took it while he was still President or else the terms of office for the PA are the shortest known to mankind.

Now, at the risk of you getting all on some debating high horse I will make the point again. Hamas won a legislative election which gave them a majority of seats on the PLC (74 to 45 of Fatah). Yes there was a civil war going on, but not a coup. There were skirmishes between Hamas and Fatah terrorists in Gaza. But I don't see how any of those skirmishes could amount to a coup against Hamas as a coup implies a change of government and there was no indication, that I'm aware of, of any attempt to replace Hamas legislators with Fatah ones.

And even if there had been, the legitimate response of Hamas would be to fight back and hold their ground keeping their democratically elected legislators in place. They didn't do that. They started systematically removing the democratically elected executive from power in Gaza and replaced it with their own unelected executive. Given this, I really cannot see any way they can claim to be a democratically legitimate government of Gaza when they were never elected as an executive and took that by force.

[Myth717]

I agree with Yuffie

[Alasdair]

(Original post by DanGrover)
Why do you think that they're doing it, then? What do they gain from killing so many innocent people?

They transfer the risk from their soldiers on the ground to the Palestinian population.

In an predominantly urban warfare setting like Gaza, you're faced with the choice of either going in on foot and clearing house-to-house, which is likely to cost quite a lot of military casualties, but be light on civilian casualties, or you can use artillery or air power to soften up beforehand, which is likely to cause heavy civilian damage.

The military likes to have us think that 'collateral damage' is unavoidable and that they're doing everything they can to prevent it, which is not strictly speaking true...

[SuperhansFavouriteAlsatian]

(Original post by Alasdair)
They transfer the risk from their soldiers on the ground to the Palestinian population.

In an predominantly urban warfare setting like Gaza, you're faced with the choice of either going in on foot and clearing house-to-house, which is likely to cost quite a lot of military casualties, but be light on civilian casualties, or you can use artillery or air power to soften up beforehand, which is likely to cause heavy civilian damage.

The military likes to have us think that 'collateral damage' is unavoidable and that they're doing everything they can to prevent it, which is not strictly speaking true...

I understand that, but it leads then to the presumption that you (or whatever) don't have a problkem with their goals, or even military action on their part, but just the way in which they are going about achieving the goals? Because now they have soldiers on the ground, and I haven't been checking every day (let's be honest, it's pretty boring) but from the other day the death toll was merely 13 for the Palestinians (and I have no idea how many of them were civvies etc, but it's pretty low eitherway). I don't know if this trend has continued because, as I say, I don't follow it super closely, but if that is the case, do you not now support their actions?

[davireland]

Can I just ask why the peacekeepers are purely British? surely a multi-national (perhaps UN led) force have more legitimacy in the eyes of the world?

[Alasdair]

(Original post by DanGrover)
I understand that, but it leads then to the presumption that you (or whatever) don't have a problkem with their goals, or even military action on their part, but just the way in which they are going about achieving the goals? Because now they have soldiers on the ground, and I haven't been checking every day (let's be honest, it's pretty boring) but from the other day the death toll was merely 13 for the Palestinians (and I have no idea how many of them were civvies etc, but it's pretty low eitherway). I don't know if this trend has continued because, as I say, I don't follow it super closely, but if that is the case, do you not now support their actions?

The death toll is around a thousand - and something like a third of that are children.

And no, I don't think I would Israeli support military action in Gaza if they were more sparing of civilian life, because I don't think it's particularly helpful to the situation. That said, I'd be much less against it if the IDF didn't have such a wide and aggressive latitude with their Rules of Engagement.

[SuperhansFavouriteAlsatian]

(Original post by Alasdair)
The death toll is around a thousand - and something like a third of that are children.

And no, I don't think I would Israeli support military action in Gaza if they were more sparing of civilian life, because I don't think it's particularly helpful to the situation. That said, I'd be much less against it if the IDF didn't have such a wide and aggressive latitude with their Rules of Engagement.

Do you think British military action in gaza would be more helpful?

[Yuffie]

I think the whole bill is ridiculous to be honest. Britain shouldn't go in warmongering and the bill is hideously one sided.

[davireland]

(Original post by Yuffie)
I think the whole bill is ridiculous to be honest. Britain shouldn't go in warmongering and the bill is hideously one sided.

Was this bill not debated in the Socialist sub-forum before it was sent to Owen?

[Yuffie]

(Original post by davireland)
Was this bill not debated in the Socialist sub-forum before it was sent to Owen?

I was banned.

[davireland]

(Original post by Yuffie)
I was banned.

Oh ok, fair enough.

[Alasdair]

(Original post by davireland)
Was this bill not debated in the Socialist sub-forum before it was sent to Owen?

It's a Private Member's Bill. Grape notified us he was sending it, but didn't need to seek approval.

[davireland]

(Original post by Alasdair)
It's a Private Member's Bill. Grape notified us he was sending it, but didn't need to seek approval.

I know but our members have the courtesy to publish the bill in the sub-forum before its submitted, just to gauge party support for it, and for the party to analyse it and make some helpful suggestions.

[Grape190190]

(Original post by davireland)
I know but our members have the courtesy to publish the bill in the sub-forum before its submitted, just to gauge party support for it, and for the party to analyse it and make some helpful suggestions.

What's the point in a PMB. The courtesy was posting it in the sub-forum so that they knew what was going up.

I'm trying to stimulate a debate here; I can do that on my own.

[davireland]

(Original post by Grape190190)
What's the point in a PMB. The courtesy was posting it in the sub-forum so that they knew what was going up.

I'm trying to stimulate a debate here; I can do that on my own.

I see your point, obviously we have different approaches towards PMB's.

[ukebert]

(Original post by davireland)
Was this bill not debated in the Socialist sub-forum before it was sent to Owen?

Since it is a PMB there is no requirement for it to be put up in any sub-forum.

[tom//]

can i ask what is being done about the situation in sri lanka? far worse than in israel from what i understand

[Jangrafess]

(Original post by tom//)
can i ask what is being done about the situation in sri lanka? far worse than in israel from what i understand

That's a completely different topic, and one that if you want tackled, you should write something for yourself. You wouldn't go into a bill on tax and say "hai guise, what about global warming?".

I'm unsure on this one. Ideally I'd like it to be a little less single sided but I'm probably closer to Andrew is than most of you.