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Hamas admits 600-700 of its men were killed in Cast Lead

Your quote:

Right there he is making a clear distinction [having already mentioned the police] between members of the police and the civilian population. This suggests they are not one and the same as you and no others claim.

Many people make a distinction between civilians and police, but under the laws of war if the police forces is not part of the military they are the same as civilians.

Pretty much actually means that I recognize they are acting also as militants and not solely as a civil order branch, and due to that I also recognize that international law openly permits their targeting.
They do not need to be officially associated with the military wing to be targeted, they merely need to be used as militants.

The police forces have to actually be an arm of the military to make it a legitimate military target as an institution. Some acted as militants, though the words of the Interior Minister suggest most were not, but that does not justify attacking the police forces as they are independent of the military.

Not all of the terrorists are militants. The militants are the ones who execute the murdering of the innocent civilians, sure, but there are also those who plan how those innocent human beings will be murdered by the terrorist group's militants, when they will be murdered and where they will be murdered. There are also those who act to plan the propaganda that will be spread after the murder of the innocents and there are those who need to stand in front of the crowd and declare the great success in the murder of those innocents and make them feel proud.

Basically every single member of a terrorist organization, whatever be his role, is acting to support and promote the murders of the innocent human beings by the terrorist organization's militants, and thus every single person who signs up for an active terrorist organization and becomes a terrorist is a valid target for removal.

So are you saying Hamas-run schools can be all destroyed as legitimate targets since Hamas is a "terrorist organization" and any member is a legitimate target?

The figures are the closest to the IDF's, and IMO when Hamas admits to figures that resemble the IDF's more than anyone's else, you know that someone was not doing his job right, to say the least.

They are not "closest" to the IDF's figures. A range of 600 to 700 would more neatly accommodate the B'Tselem figures, the IDF estimate falls outside of that range, and their figures for civilian deaths are much higher than the IDF's figures.
 
So, going back to the original contention of the OP, how much is Goldstone actually damaged by this?

I think that the way the thread has veered towards anality about definitions answers this question in full.
 
So, going back to the original contention of the OP, how much is Goldstone actually damaged by this?

I think that the way the thread has veered towards anality about definitions answers this question in full.

How was he damaged? He was not damaged at all. Those who hired him to pursue their agenda were satisfied that he did so, and the cult-like Palestinian supporters were happy he delivered, and neither would believe he erred since they are not after the truth to begin with. Ethnic hatred leaves no room for truth.

How can obvious bigots be damaged when other obvious bigots will just create any excuse at their disposal for supporting them?
 
How was he damaged? He was not damaged at all. Those who hired him to pursue their agenda were satisfied that he did so, and the cult-like Palestinian supporters were happy he delivered, and neither would believe he erred since they are not after the truth to begin with. Ethnic hatred leaves no room for truth.

How can obvious bigots be damaged when other obvious bigots will just create any excuse at their disposal for supporting them?

So who might those people be Gardener? Is this aimed at specific people on this forum, it's rather unlike you to be obtuse?

The question was how much has Fathi Hamad's statement damaged Goldstone?
 
The question was how much has Fathi Hamad's statement damaged Goldstone?

.....and I answered it. Goldstone performed as he was hired to perform, and those those who typically exhibit the same slavish support for this agenda will not be ruffled at all. They will simply craft yet more sophistry that allows them to peddle their bigotry as if it were some sort of virtue.

The only possibility that he was "damaged" in any way would be among those who did not know what his agenda was in the first place, and were actually fair minded enough to then realize the true nature of such. Those sorts of people are few and far between, since most who pay attention already knew what he would write before he wrote it because they understood his agenda, and either rejected his agenda because of his obvious bias, or supported it for the same reason.
 
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Here we go:


Art. 3. In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following
provisions:

(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

International Humanitarian Law - Fourth 1949 Geneva Convention

From which I understand that even if one insists that the Gaza police is part of Hamas, in the case of a graduation ceremony, the police was NOT taking active part in the hostilities. Being cadets also means that they had never taken part in hostilities in the past either since the ceremony was to mark the beginning of their career as police officers.
 
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including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms

Taking part in a ceremony =/= laying down arms. Just because they were parading about does not mean they had surrendered. Their position and their mission were clear, and they got caught.

It's actually pretty hysterical that you think "laying down arms" means "not having arms at the moment". As if, a soldier who puts down his weapon to go take a crap is safe - having "laid down their arms".

No offense, haha.
 
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Taking part in a ceremony =/= laying down arms. Just because they were parading about does not mean they had surrendered. Their position and their mission were clear, and they got caught.

It's actually pretty hysterical that you think "laying down arms" means "not having arms at the moment". As if, a soldier who puts down his weapon to go take a crap is safe - having "laid down their arms".

No offense, haha.

The article says : Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms

and NOT

Members who have laid down their arms including persons taking no active part in hostilities.

you dig ?
 
The article says : Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms

and NOT

Members who have laid down their arms including persons taking no active part in hostilities.

you dig ?

Joining a genocidal terrorist organization and then being armed with weapons is an act of taking part in the hostilities. Quite obviously, anybody who sought peace WOULDN'T join the genocidal terrorist organization, and WOULD'T be armed.
 
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Joining a genocidal terrorist organization and then being armed with weapons is an act of taking part in the hostilities. Quite obviously, anybody who sought peace WOULDN'T join the genocidal terrorist organization, and WOULD'T be armed.

read the article again

(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

They were targetted during a graduation ceremony. They were NOT taking part in hostilities, you don't seem to want to understand this.

What good is it to kill as many people connected to Hamas as possible ? for every person killed, there will be dozens recruited. Almost every child in Gaza is a potential Hamas militant, so should they all be killed as well ?

Almost every Israeli has served or will serve in the IDF, are all Israelis legitimate targets even when they are NOT taking active part in hostilities ?
 
?

At first I thought Mira did not understand "laying down arms" and was claiming it was illegal because they were not holding loaded weapons at the time. Now I think Mira's argument is "no active part in hostilities", meaning "they weren't shooting at the moment".

I'm not sure if being unarmed during a ceremony or not actually shooting at the moment is the claim - to warcrime, mind us. Uniformed participants killed during ceremony is the claim of warcrime.
 
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?

At first I thought Mira did not understand "laying down arms" and was claiming it was illegal because they were not holding loaded weapons at the time. Now I think Mira's argument is "no active part in hostilities", meaning "they weren't shooting at the moment".

I'm not sure if being unarmed during a ceremony or not actually shooting at the moment is the claim - to warcrime, mind us. Uniformed participants killed during ceremony is the claim of warcrime.

I think you're arguing only for the sake of arguing. Even a 10 year-old would have got the gist by reading the article and I'm sure you're much smarter than that. So I'll let you have the last word in order to serve your ego, I don't have an ego problem.

Good luck to you
 
Joining a genocidal terrorist organization and then being armed with weapons is an act of taking part in the hostilities. Quite obviously, anybody who sought peace WOULDN'T join the genocidal terrorist organization, and WOULD'T be armed.

According to Israel, being Palestinian means you are actively taking part in hostilities.

The rest of the world, however, can distinguish between civilian and military objectives while obliging to the laws of proportionality.


It concludes, however, that the attacks against the
police facilities on the first day of the armed operations failed to strike an acceptable balance
between the direct military advantage anticipated (i.e. the killing of those policemen who may
have been members of Palestinian armed groups) and the loss of civilian life (i.e. the other
policemen killed and members of the public who would inevitably have been present or in the
vicinity)
, and therefore violated international humanitarian law.


Notice how no one has argued against the findings of the Goldstone report, just attacked him? Typical.
 
Israelis didn't target civilians. They displayed on of the most humane defensive operations in the history of war. They made phone calls, text messages, and drop leaflets warning civilians of incoming attacks. They went through great lengths to protect innocent life. Gaza is an extremely densely populated area. Not only that, but Hamas had hidden weapons and terrorists in mosques and near homes. I believe the civilian death toll has been exaggerated and the Goldstone report a sham. However, measures taken by the IDF to protect civilian life should be applauded and recognized.
 
Israelis didn't target civilians. They displayed on of the most humane defensive operations in the history of war. They made phone calls, text messages, and drop leaflets warning civilians of incoming attacks. They went through great lengths to protect innocent life. Gaza is an extremely densely populated area. Not only that, but Hamas had hidden weapons and terrorists in mosques and near homes. I believe the civilian death toll has been exaggerated and the Goldstone report a sham. However, measures taken by the IDF to protect civilian life should be applauded and recognized.

yeah, right, they did that as a routine procedure. And WHERE the hell were the inhabitants of Gaza supposed to go ?

And then the IDF used human shields to storm houses and militia hideouts :roll:
 
Israelis didn't target civilians. They displayed on of the most humane defensive operations in the history of war. They made phone calls, text messages, and drop leaflets warning civilians of incoming attacks. They went through great lengths to protect innocent life. Gaza is an extremely densely populated area. Not only that, but Hamas had hidden weapons and terrorists in mosques and near homes. I believe the civilian death toll has been exaggerated and the Goldstone report a sham. However, measures taken by the IDF to protect civilian life should be applauded and recognized.

OK, the proportion of militants killed and civilians killed completely destroys the laughable idea that Operation Cast Lead was a "humane" operation. :roll:

Look at all the non-military things that were destroyed. The al-Bader flour mill (the only remaining flour mill in Gaza prior to Cast Lead). What military purpose can you give for destroying that factory? This is after saying they were not going to destroy it, but kept changing their minds.
 
. They were NOT taking part in hostilities, you don't seem to want to understand this.

They joined the terrorist organization with full intent.Your argument is tantamount to claiming soldiers involved in a war are not legitimate targets as long as their fingers are not actually in the act of pulling a trigger.

It's odd how much support Hamas receives from those who make claims they do not support them.
 
They joined the terrorist organization with full intent.Your argument is tantamount to claiming soldiers involved in a war are not legitimate targets as long as their fingers are not actually in the act of pulling a trigger.

It's odd how much support Hamas receives from those who make claims they do not support them.

Read the god damn article in the Geneva Convention before accusing me of being a terrorist supporter !!

I did not frigging write the convention !!!


Art. 3. In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following
provisions:

(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

International Humanitarian Law - Fourth 1949 Geneva Convention

sheeeesh :doh
 
They joined the terrorist organization with full intent.Your argument is tantamount to claiming soldiers involved in a war are not legitimate targets as long as their fingers are not actually in the act of pulling a trigger.

It's odd how much support Hamas receives from those who make claims they do not support them.

I see where you are getting confused. Affiliation does not mean participation. A person does not have to have a finger on the trigger in order to be a legitimate target.

The Gaza police is assigned civil tasks such as maintaining order in Gaza. If some do participate spontaneously in military action, that does not classify all of Gaza police as part of the Hamas Al-Qassam brigades.

Therefore without Israel having the speciffic confirmation that the police forces and in this case cadets will have continuous and permanent combat function, they cannot be legitimate targets.

If some Hamas policemen (and we're not talking about cadts) are also fighters in Al-Qassam Brigades, Israel cannot target them in the presence of other policemen. In this case they targetted unarmed cadets and their families during a graduation ceremony to become policemen.

Edit: since Hamas is a terrorist organisation and you are accusing me of supporting Hamas, you are therfore accusing me of being a terrorist supporter. By saying "those" you are doing it indirectly. smart !
 
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The Interior Minister specifically made a distinction between members of the military wing of Hamas and the police. Police were not a formal part of any military group, these individuals were killed at the very beginning of the war, and they were all in buildings affiliated with the police force. Since his figure of 250 killed matches up with those of two independent organizations it seems reasonable to say that Israel's inclusion of police casualties as combatants was gravely mistaken.

Let us not forget either that not a single outside group has agreed with the IDF's incredibly low estimates of civilian casualties. Even if one makes the baseless conclusion the IDF did about all police being combatants you still have more civilians being killed than combatants by any measure but Israel's.
 
.....and I answered it. Goldstone performed as he was hired to perform, and those those who typically exhibit the same slavish support for this agenda will not be ruffled at all. They will simply craft yet more sophistry that allows them to peddle their bigotry as if it were some sort of virtue.

The only possibility that he was "damaged" in any way would be among those who did not know what his agenda was in the first place, and were actually fair minded enough to then realize the true nature of such. Those sorts of people are few and far between, since most who pay attention already knew what he would write before he wrote it because they understood his agenda, and either rejected his agenda because of his obvious bias, or supported it for the same reason.

Because you are using such strong language and it says in your title "somewhat unambiguous" I will push you on these points again.

The question was how much has Fathi Hamad's statement damaged Goldstone?

You did not answer it, you just accused everyone that has a different point of view to yourself of being bigoted. Considering that Fathi Hamad's statement is actually in very good accord with Goldstone a truely fair minded person might conclude that Hamas has supported the figures of Goldstone page 90. You have read Goldstone page 90 haven't you?

So who might those people be Gardener? Is this aimed at specific people on this forum, it's rather unlike you to be obtuse?
 
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Today, Haaretz reported:

Hamas admitted last week that between 600 and 700 of its militants were killed during Operation Cast Lead – a figure consistent with that reported by the Israel Defense Forces...


A good start.

.
 
All armed Palestinian personal are defined as police, the oslo agreement allowed the foundation of a Palestinian Police, not a Palestinian army. The 2000 intifada was fought between the Palestinian Police and the IDF, Hamas's police force in Gaza are a part of the armed forces of Gaza, they are no civilians and not what we define as a regular police force to keep law and order, those do not jump through blazed hoops
 
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