Dear Foxy,

«"Send Gaza back to the Middle Ages."
(former Israeli Deputy PM).»

Wow, I didn't know he was that generous and intent on improving their conditions that much!

The person who said these words was Ely Yishai, of the Shas political party that represents orthodox Sepharadi voters, that is Jews who came to Israel from Arab countries, in his family's particular case from Tunisia due the persecution of Jews and pogroms in that country. That explains his extreme hatred of anything Arab.

Yishai became the head of Shas in 1999, following the criminal conviction of his predecessor, but soon after in 2000 he led his party to leave Israel's coalition-government due to its participation in the Camp-David peace talks. He joined Netanyahu's government again in 2009 and as part of the coalition bargain became his deputy-PM. Soon after in 2010 he was found responsible for the negligence and failure in preparing the fire-fighting service for the horrific fires in northern Israel which cost that many lives. He was also kicked out at that time from his party's leadership by his party's chief Rabbi who had absolute authority, so he left in shame and created a new political party along members of Israel's present Nazi party. Fortunately his new party failed the 2014 elections.

«"Beat them up so it hurts so badly, until
it's unbearable."
(Benjamin Netanyahu).»

Netanyahu said it indeed, he has a big mouth and barks really loud, but Hamas actually did what he only said!

For many in Israel, life is indeed becoming unbearable.
Many now have to rely on psychiatric drugs to survive.
I have a friend there with nightmares, seriously believing that Israel is about to be destroyed and though born in Israel, that his family will be forced to return to Poland, where many of his relatives were killed in the holocaust.

Many innocent Australian Jews now also live in fear and try to hide by staying home and avoiding routine activities. At some point, their lives will also become unbearable.

When choosing your sources of information, Foxy, please pay attention to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUPS83P0S88

Hi Yuyutsu,

I thought you were a person who believed in the human rights of the individual, was I wrong about you? You very much are justifying the murder of innocent men, women and children, why is that?

"where many of his relatives were killed in the holocaust" that was indeed a crime against humanity, lets not condone another such crime in Gaza today.

Yuyutsu, there are many haters on both sides of the barbed wire, Zionists and Hamas who hate each other, let not yourself be put in that category.

Post-truth mhaze,

You are at it again.

You claimed the article described a mother and child bound together and burnt alive.

It didn't.

It said: “ one belonging to an adult, one to someone young”. You embellished it and it seems much of the early reporting was embellished. Which is a pity because the events were horrific enough without needing to do this.

The Israeli spokesperson in the video was quite explicit saying:

"Originally we said of the atrocious
Hamas attack on our people on October
7th we had the number at 1,400
casualties, and now we've revised that
down to 1,200 because we understood that
we had overestimated we we made a
mistake there were actually bodies that
were so badly burnt we thought they were
ours in the end apparently they were
Hamas terrorists."

That is over 200 Hamas bodies that were so badly burnt they couldn't be distinguished from Israeli victims.

Were the Hamas fighters setting themselves alight? Of course not. It is highly likely that IDF Hellfire missiles incinerated both Hamas and Israelis and that the charred bodies from your linked article were the result of those attacks. They were possibly hostages being taken back to Gaza but their incineration looks to have been a result of the IDF response.

As to a Piers Morgan interview with Douglas Murray of the Spectator given me a break. You called me out for linking to an Al Jazera article, this is far worse. It is commentary, not even a news story.

Try to do better.

Oh dear Steele. Your commentary reminds me of the spoof BBC journo sympathising with a Hamas terrorist for the sleep deprivation a baby Jewish hostage is causing him.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-773279

Dear Paul,

«I thought you were a person who believed in the human rights of the individual»

That must have been a misunderstanding: "rights", by definition, are bestowed by some greater powers (such as states) - yet we are inherently greater than anything that can possibly be bestowed on us from outside, so great that throwing that pittance of "rights" at us can only count as an insult.

«You very much are justifying the murder of innocent men, women and children, why is that?»

I do not justify anyone's murder. I condemn it.

Murder requires an intent to kill, excluding in self-defence.
Hamas' actions on October 7th were obviously murderous and I believe Israel to now be acting in self-defence, so that cannot recur.
Should there be any exceptions, any bad apples who deliberately kill innocent people, then they ought to be shot as well.

At present, necessity due to the nature of the battlefield sometimes forces Israel to kill Gazans, of which some are innocent and others not.
Israel tries to save them to the extent reasonably possible, but it is not always possible, due to the nature of war with both planned and unplanned ambiguity.

To give an example of ambiguity, a couple of days ago, while clearing a building in Gaza, an Israeli soldier encountered a bed that was covered in a strange way. The residents were not supposed to be there as they were prewarned, so the soldier did not suspect anything, he carefully removed the sheet and saw there a Gazan man who suddenly woke up and shouted in fear. The soldier also was startled and screamed, but he recovered from the shock first and shot the man at close range. There was no time to find whether or not he was armed. It turned out that the man was an unarmed Hamas spy who gathered information about the soldier's unit in order to ambush them the following night, it could have turned out otherwise, it could have been an innocent civilian, but who could take that risk?

[continued...]

[...continued]

«Yuyutsu, there are many haters on both sides of the barbed wire, Zionists and Hamas who hate each other, let not yourself be put in that category.»

You seem to misread the map:

The barbed wire is between moderates and extremists.
Netanyahu's Jewish-extremist government and Hamas Islamic-extremists are on the one same side, they do outwardly fight and kill each other, they do put on a show of hating each other but they don't really hate each other, they need each other to stay in power. I wouldn't even give these Jewish extermists the pleasure of being called "Zionists" because they are destroying everything which Zionism ever built.

Israelis and Gazans are on the same other side of the barbed wire. They have nothing against each other, they are both the victims of the extremists.

The majority of Gazans are hostages of Hamas and similar terror groups, and Israel is now freeing them from their cruel captors who also use them as human shields. It is so unfortunate that some of them have to be killed before the others can see the light.

I do wish that some power could similarly help freeing Israel from its own extremists, but I look around and can't see who can.