Political Crossfire Forums

[thundertaker]

And then seem surprised that the whole arab world hates them?

The Israeli's make no secret of how little esteem they hold the life of a Palestinian civilian, so it is hardly suprising that Palestinian moderates who are in favour of dialogue are rarer than rocking horse s**t.

The British made mistakes in Northern Ireland (namely bloody sunday) that acted as an enormous boost to the Republican cause, but British restraint in the use of force went some way towards withering away the IRA's support base amongst the Catholic community over the course of the troubles.
Perhaps if the Israeli's thought with their brains instead of their balls, they would realise that perhaps what might seem a good idea in the short term (destroying entire tower blocks to kill one terrorist) might in the long term ensure that ordinary palestinians and arabs will never start to lose interest in the agenda of a few radicals, instead of becoming radicals themselves....

[TacticalSniper]

Really? British restraint? What a BS. Israel cares for lives much more than you Brits ever did.

[thundertaker]

TacticalSniper wrote: Really? British restraint? What a BS. Israel cares for lives much more than you Brits ever did.

Not in recent history they haven't (please don't bother delving back into Britain's colonial past for examples of British atrocities, we are all living in the 21st century now were standards of behaviour are different). Even though the original Bloody Sunday Enquiry was a whitewash, the British government has never, ever stated that Nationalist lives are less important than Unionist ones, the way Olmert has said about Israeli lives being more important than Palestinian lives.
Were do you think we would be with Ireland today if we had responded to the Brighton boming with full-scale airstrikes in South Armargh and the Bogside in Derry? Well-funded full-scale guerrilla warfare eternal, instead of the pathetic crew of motley gangsters the IRA have been reduced to today.....

[Plato & Socrates]

thundertaker wrote: And then seem surprised that the whole arab world hates them?

The Israeli's make no secret of how little esteem they hold the life of a Palestinian civilian, so it is hardly suprising that Palestinian moderates who are in favour of dialogue are rarer than rocking horse s**t.

The British made mistakes in Northern Ireland (namely bloody sunday) that acted as an enormous boost to the Republican cause, but British restraint in the use of force went some way towards withering away the IRA's support base amongst the Catholic community over the course of the troubles.
Perhaps if the Israeli's thought with their brains instead of their balls, they would realise that perhaps what might seem a good idea in the short term (destroying entire tower blocks to kill one terrorist) might in the long term ensure that ordinary palestinians and arabs will never start to lose interest in the agenda of a few radicals, instead of becoming radicals themselves....

I tried explaining the same thing, talking to some of the pro-Israeli government supporters, is like teaching a blind man from birth colours. It is way beyond there understanding.

I also wrote this for the Israelis to get some perspective.

Plato & Socrates wrote: Pebble wrote: MoscowMatt wrote: Plato & Socrates wrote:
Yet again after world wide acknowledgment that Israel is in the right to stop Hizbollah attacks in all forms. She goes completely over the top, just like night follows day and like thunder follows lightning, the pro-Israeli's will defend every single death perpetrated on behalf of the IDF. It's too predictable and quite frankly bordering the pathetic.


Given your stance on matters I'll excuse your ignorance and stupidity regarding matters of warfare!!!

Any nation being attacked will respond with all it's might. The idea of any war is to win it is quickly as possible nobody wants a drawn out conflict over decades. In order to acheive this you use overwhelming force.

So simple even you could understand this. But apparently not!!! :lol:

Overwhelming force against civilians is the single greatest way to prolong this conflict 'over decades'.

If you wish to punish a petty criminal do you send him to the gallows? The sentance in this case is disproportionate in the extreme to the crime.

MoscowMatt their is no way you are British, talking the utter rubbish you do. What has our history in Ireland taught you?
Do you remember the Brighton bombing? Did the Republic of Ireland get bombed? We consistently told the American's that from a British government perspective, the I.R.A was a terrorist group. Day after day, week after week, year after bloody year, in the bars of Boston and New York, I.R.A fund-raising was going on.

Those collections were being used to fund I.R.A terrorist activities on the British mainland. These Bombs killed and maimed many of our fellow citizens as you fully well know. It disrupted everyday life especially the transport. But did we go on a killing spree, even though we had the capacity to do so?

"Any nation being attacked does'nt always respond with all it's might" People like you talk about using overwhelming force because you personally are not on the receiving end. If we Brits were as dumb as the Israeli's, we would be occupying the Republic of Ireland today.

With the logic applied by Israel, The U.K would have been within her rights to bomb the Irish communities in New York and Boston because for decades we requested the U.S government to stop I.R.A fund raising taking place on their soil. Who did'nt use to feel sick watching Gerry Adams and Martin Mc-Guiness, swanning around raising funds to kill my fellow citizens.
Hey, why stop at Boston and New York, why not the whole of the USA infrastucture?

The I.R.A had political offices in the Republic of Ireland whilst they bombed us and assassinated some of our politicians. Did we bomb the Rep of Ireland infrastructure to the dark ages?

Not once did we make the I.R.A and the American fund raising issue seriously come between the British government and Americans. Neither did we try to obliterate the Rep of Ireland government for allowing financial aid to freely flow without any attempt to stop it, going to the I.R.A, even though we continually asked. So please don't give me the "you've never faced what we're facing tripe"

Overwhelming force. :lol: listen to yourself. How people on this forum can come on here and proclaim that the state of Lebanon declared war on Israel, is beyond me. :shock: Quite frankly i'm lost for words and that's rare.

They did'nt have much to say. Its a near enough replica of the Israeli scenario. Yet we never did what there doing.

[TacticalSniper]

It wasn't because British restraint, it was because people got sick of war.

Also, Plato, learn some history. Israel always used restraint. What about the Dolphinarium bombing? 23 killed, of them 20 kids. Do you know what Israel did? Nothing. Hezbollah attacked Israel constantly for six years. Know what Israel did? Nothing. In 2001 three soldiers were captured by Hezbollah. Even though we knew they were dead we freed hundreds of prisoners. And you know what Israel did else? Nothing. Talk about restraint. You Brits should learn some about it. Also, IRA wanted Brits out of Eireann, while Arabs want us all dead.

[thundertaker]

TacticalSniper wrote: It wasn't because British restraint, it was because people got sick of war.

Why do you think they got sick of war? Perhaps it's because the British Security Forces didn't make themselves worth getting that worked up about unless you were a hard-core fanatic, as opposed to treating the lives of civilians from the other side as completely expendable the way the IDF does with the Palestinians...

[TacticalSniper]

I might be reading the wrong sources, but I've seen estimate of 52 percent of civilian casualties by British "security forces" (unless I didn't understand it well). Is that what you call restraint?

Also, do you prefer, to minimize the casualties, just enter Palestinian cities with infantry and tanks?

Also, I don't remember IRA shooting RPGs and planting IEDs every three feet against British forces.

[Plato & Socrates]

TacticalSniper wrote: It wasn't because British restraint, it was because people got sick of war.

Also, Plato, learn some history. Israel always used restraint. What about the Dolphinarium bombing? 23 killed, of them 20 kids. Do you know what Israel did? Nothing. Hezbollah attacked Israel constantly for six years. Know what Israel did? Nothing. In 2001 three soldiers were captured by Hezbollah. Even though we knew they were dead we freed hundreds of prisoners. And you know what Israel did else? Nothing. Talk about restraint. You Brits should learn some about it. Also, IRA wanted Brits out of Eireann, while Arabs want us all dead.

Stop the Arabs want us all dead crap. Your examples of restraint compared to our conflict is a joke. Neither was it because we got sick of war. There was enough bloodthirsty members of our governing classes who didnt want to see peace with the Irish. They would be more than happy to see us fighting the I.R.A today if it was possible.

In the Israeli Palestine conflict both sides will have to be contortionists from there usual position to achieve peace.
Israel will have to give back the West bank and Golan heights except for Jerusalem and a few other places.
Hamas et al will have to fully recognise the right of Israel to exist ect.ect, Give up on Israel being bought back into Palestine and the return of refugees. How this is done is another matter. anything less and the fighting will never stop.

[Plato & Socrates]

TacticalSniper wrote: I might be reading the wrong sources, but I've seen estimate of 52 percent of civilian casualties by British "security forces" (unless I didn't understand it well). Is that what you call restraint?

Also, do you prefer, to minimize the casualties, just enter Palestinian cities with infantry and tanks?

Also, I don't remember IRA shooting RPGs and planting IEDs every three feet against British forces.

The secret is not to let it escalate to that type of conflict. Yes you may talk about RPGs & IEDs, but you guys also sniper the side of little school girls heads if I'm not mistaken. Its this revenge factor in your conflict which is so destructive.
The expression Rome was'nt built in a day should be taught to all your commanding officers. You guys got to play a long, long game if need be. This quick fix job your trying on Hizbollah is doomed to failure, and i'll give you that advice for free.

[thundertaker]

TacticalSniper wrote: I might be reading the wrong sources, but I've seen estimate of 52 percent of civilian casualties by British "security forces" (unless I didn't understand it well). Is that what you call restraint?


Well that's bulls**t for a start. The IRA are responsible for the majority of casualties in the trouble, even amongst their fellow catholics. Out of the approximately 3,500 people who died in the troubles, just over 2,000 of them were killed at the hands of Republican terrorists. The British Security services were responsible for a miniscule 368 in comparison.

http://www.cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/book/index.html#append

Quote: Also, do you prefer, to minimize the casualties, just enter Palestinian cities with infantry and tanks?

I can't comment specifically on what kind of military tactics they should adopt, however if short term pain means long term gain, then it would probably be better to risk increased Israeli military casualties to minimise Palestinian civilian casualties. In the long term, it means less dead Israelis as well as Palestinians.

Quote: Also, I don't remember IRA shooting RPGs and planting IEDs every three feet against British forces.

The IRA used roadside bombs against British patrols on a regualr basis at the height of the troubles during the 1970s. It got so dangerous in South Armargh that the British stopped routine ground patrols in the area and adopted a more low-key approach. Course, they could have used overwhelming force to forcibly occupy the area, but they were clearly very aware of the long term consequences of launching a full-scale assault on a civilian area....

[TacticalSniper]

Like I've said in many occassions we are ready to give lands back (however, Syria will never get the Golan Heights) and do many steps - basically, all you've just said - to achieve peace. But you Brits want us to pull back, do everything and then see if HAMAS and IJ do their part? Why would we do that??? After all, they said clear and loud they will never accept Israel and will fight until Israel is destroyed. So did Iran, who supports most anti-Israeli terrorism now. So why would we do that? Palestinians committed to many things - did none of them. So don't come blaming us for the failure. We pulled back many times and many times just sat back after we were attacked (I already mentioned the Dolphinarium disco bombing, also as a good example is the year 2000 when Arafat asked three times for Israel to pull back into its positions so that Palestinian forces could control the streets - and every time there were new suicide bombings against us).
I'll give you another example. The city of Hebron. At one point Israel passed the control of it to Gibril Rajub - one of the most powerful men at the time. For a while he managed to control the streets. But what happened after "a while"? We got attacked again, several times, from that very same area.

Arabs do want us all dead, if you don't see it - you're blind. Look at HAMAS, IJ, PLO, PLF and Iran.

How are my examples of restraint are a joke?

People wanted peace. Irish people wanted peace. You Brits for centuries been murdering people by thousands, so obviously there will be many people in your parliament who'll want war.

[TacticalSniper]

thundermaker wrote: If short term pain means long term gain, then it would probably be better to risk increased Israeli military casualties to minimise Palestinian civilian casualties, yes.

You know nothing, do you? It's not about military casualties, I understand soldiers could die. It's about civilian casualties. If IDF would move in with tanks every time to assassinate single terrorist, in every such operation hundreds of Palesitnians would've died.

thundermaker wrote: The IRA used roadside bombs against British patrols on a regualr basis at the height of the troubles during the 1970s. It got so dangerous in South Armargh that the British stopped routine ground patrols in the area and adopted a more low-key approach. Course, they could have used overwhelming force to forcibly occupy the area, but they were clearly very aware of the long term consequences of launching a full-scale assault on a civilian area....

And that's what Israelis did. They found it too difficult to patrol Qalqilya, Ramallah, Gaza. So they gave it to Palestinian control. Do I need to remind you what happened next?

Also, IRA didn't fire rockets into England, so getting out of their land wouldn't matter much to Brits, would it? However, Israel pulled out of Gaza, stopped all attacks in Gaza and what did we get? Rockets on our cities. See the difference?

[thundertaker]

Quote: People wanted peace. Irish people wanted peace. You Brits for centuries been murdering people by thousands, so obviously there will be many people in your parliament who'll want war.

The wanted the British out of Northern Ireland. We're still their today. We just haven't gone around alienating people who would have been moderates if it wasn't for the fact that there probably isn't a single Palestinian who is untouched by Israeli violence at some level.....

[TacticalSniper]

Just like there isn't Israeli who isn't untouched by Palestinian terror at some level. I, for one, known four people who died from Palestinian attacks.

Also, you're hiding from facts again. Israel gave up Gaza. Totally. WHAT DID WE GET?

[thundertaker]

Quote:
You know nothing, do you? It's not about military casualties, I understand soldiers could die. It's about civilian casualties. If IDF would move in with tanks every time to assassinate single terrorist, in every such operation hundreds of Palesitnians would've died.

Then perhaps if the cost of assasinating the terrorist is too high, it would be better not to assasinate them? It has been stated that the British security forces were aware of where the key players in the Republican movement were at all times, and could have if they wished sent the SAS in to slot them all in one night, but didn't because they would only be replaced and increase sympathy for the Republican cause by having sinister government agents deployed to murder people without the benefit of a trial.....

[TacticalSniper]

Israel tried that. Remember Yasser Arafat? Responsible for hundreds of deaths. You know what he got. And you know what he got back.

The problem is that we are talking about a bit different things here. Once again, on several occassions we just did nothing. Plain and simple. We did not assassinate, we did not go into their cities... Nothing. We were attacked more and more. I suppose that if there would be explosion in London by an IRA British response would be pretty fierce. Look at the London tube bombings. Amount of people killed there - relatively to your population - is less than petite. But what did you do? Started getting all worked up beacause of it. Why won't you just sit back, get your troops out of Iraq and understand that these people are fighting for freedom?

[thundertaker]

TacticalSniper wrote: Just like there isn't Israeli who isn't untouched by Palestinian terror at some level. I, for one, known four people who died from Palestinian attacks.

Also, you're hiding from facts again. Israel gave up Gaza. Totally. WHAT DID WE GET?

That's a symptom of the bitter feelings that have already been engendered by years of tit-for-tat violence. Perhaps if you started to try and ramp down on the violence, you could get to the stage were evacuating sensitive locations was a viable option, instead of ramping it up again to a new level like you are doing now over these kidnapped soldiers...... :roll:

[TacticalSniper]

About Lebanon - I do believe it would be better to try and stop the attacks by the IAF for, say, 24 hours and see what happens. Israelis believe the soldiers are dead anyway. No way anyone could survive that hit by the RPG.

What exactly are you talking about tit-for-tat violence? We gave up area. Gaza. All of it. Totally. To Palestinians. To HAMAS. And?

Also, I believe that if right now, IRA would kidnap your soldiers Britain would be furious and would definitely do some damage.

Also, I was just reading about the conflict in NI:

Quote: Lesson 7: Both the Protestant and Catholic paramilitaries increasingly turned to crime over time to finance their activities. Protestant and Catholic paramilitaries turned to robbery, extortion, and especially drug-dealing in England and Northern Ireland to finance their military activities, pay salaries of full-time officers, and support the families of jailed comrades. They appear to be taking advantage of contacts originally made with organized crime to run guns to now smuggle drugs into Northern Ireland and to distribute drugs for the paramilitaries in the United Kingdom.

Which definitely made the IRA-supporting population think again as it elevated the crime rated on their streets, as far as I understand.

Quote: Lesson 9: IRA and Protestant paramilitary operations more often aimed at achieving political advantage than military results. Operations against Heathrow airport, shopping districts, pubs, and hotels seem to have little military value, but often translated into political gain. Even attacks against military targets were often carried out for political advantage.

Palestinians try to achieve military results, by trying to kill and injure as many civilians as they can, specifically targeting them.

Source

Basically, there's a lot to learn from this, and implement some by the IDF, however the situations are different. For example, overall, British could enter practically any area they wanted or needed - not so with the IDF, without extremely heavy losses.

Overall, in NI we were talking about population living in relatively normal conditions and hating the British for their incursion. The difference is that Palestinians are educated since childhood to hate and kill Israelis. Do you remember Palestinian children saying they want to be shahids? How many of those did you see among Irish? Also, the problem with the Palestinians is their corrupt gov'ts, who took all the billions provided to them for their people - to themselves.

So the problem is we're talking about different population here. Irish had a clear goal to drive Brits our of Ireland. The Palestinians have a goal to destroy Israel.

[Nico]

TacticalSniper wrote: Really? British restraint? What a BS. Israel cares for lives much more than you Brits ever did.

oh really? I would say there's no comparison :?

[TacticalSniper]

Whatever the case is, what I'm saying is that Israel thinks 5 times before performing an operation. Many times ops got cancelled because of too much risks for civilians.