Sheikh Yassin Assassination

[putty]

I'm not going to get into this like that last thread because I don't think it's productive. I do absolutely see the point of view that this will stir things up for Hamas but there is no way that you can sit there and say that Israel has no right to do this.

Like I already pointed out, Hamas is not in this for negotiations. They exist in order to destroy Israel. They are not the PLO. They are not the Basques. They are not even Fatah.

You need proof that he was involved in terrorism?

Sayed Seyam, a Hamas spokesman, said Dr Rantissi was being given responsibility for Gaza but not the West Bank, unlike Sheikh Yassin who had control of Gaza, the West Bank and Hamas operations abroad.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/st...1176478,00.html

Proof isn't lacking.

You saw in Jenin what happens when Israel decides to go into a hotbed and arrest terrorists. It turns into a bloodbath with 50 terrorists and 25 soldiers dead.

Your "two wrongs don't make a right" argument is a tad simplistic. In that case, there is never any time for war. Nice idea and maybe in an ideal world but not reality. In addition, the analogy to IRA doesn't really apply. For one, IRA bombings stopped after the Good Friday agreement. For another, the IRA never had the influence and reach or numbers of Palestinian terrorists. The IRA was an underground secret organization that hid in safe-houses. Hamas and Islamic Jihad are hardly underground. They have no qualms about operating in full view. The IRA was also united in its goal to get the British out of NI. The Palestinians have prominent terrorist groups aimed at getting rid of Israel completely. The IRA also had a history of at least warning the police before bombings in order to minimize civilian deaths.

And besides the point, the British have killed many civilians themselves. Both in NI and in Iraq.

Your statistics don't concur with the ones I've seen.

I don't know... Btselem shows an obvious decrease in successful suicide bombings the past few months.

http://btselem.org/English/Statistics/Al_A...ties_Tables.asp

Which stats do you have that disagree with this?

You can kill as many leaders as you like but there are always 10 more ready to replace them and if they're not as effective as the last bunch, they will learn quickly enough. you might get a lull in the attacks as the new leadership is inexperienced but its not a long term solution. More to the point it is not the way to achieve a real long term solution i.e peace.

There is no peace with Hamas. They want to replace Israel with an Islamic state and publically state that they will not stop until they get it. What is there to negotiate? Peace has been and will be negotiated with the PLO.

[leftism]

Those figures are wrong and probably need to be updated.

They have 0 Israeli civilians killed in February 2004 but if you check out the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs it has listings of all the recent suicide bombings.

February 2004

So February 2004 should be 8 civilian deaths.

They also have 2 deaths for January 2004, that should be 11.
January 2004

So if you update B'tselems figures with the ones from the Israeli Gvt you can see that there has not been a decrease in the number of civilian deaths at all. It goes up and down in ebbs and flows but it is definitely not lessening.

The problem with Hamas is that they are not just a terrorist organisation. They provide much needed social services as well. So when you kill their leader it's bound to enrage all Palestinians and makes peace less likely.

If it helped with the suicide bombing issue then maybe you would have a point, but it clearly does not.

I noticed that (according to B'tselem) the total number of Israeli civilians killed between September 2000 - 10th March 2004 was 198, the total number of Palestinians killed was 2,397. Even if 90% of those Palestinian were not civilians, Israel is still killing more civilians than the Palestinians are.

The point remains that targeted assassinations do not help defend Israel and do not help bring about peace.

[putty]

Lefty, you're looking at the wrong table on the Btselem site. The last one on the page shows deaths within the Green Line (where suicide bombs take place). The table you looked at are deaths within the territories.

So...

If it helped with the suicide bombing issue then maybe you would have a point,

I take it that I have a point.

Besides this, you wouldn't question Btselem stats would you? They are questioned by many Israelis snce they count every Palestinian killed without military fatigues as civilians. Are you agreeing with them that Btselem either overestimates Palestinian civilian deaths or underestimates Israeli civilian deaths?

And another case in point... I just saw a news report showing that just today a 16 year old Palestinian suicide bomber was stopped at the border of entry into Israel. He was already wearing his suicide vest but decided that he didn't want to go through with it and requested a pair of scissors which was sent to him via a robot (while soldiers stood way back for protection). He too the scissors, cut the vest off and surrendered to Israel. It was almost amusing.

The Hamas talent pool is shrinking.

[leftism]

Originally posted by putty+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (putty)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>lefty, you&#39;re looking at the wrong table on the Btselem site. The last one on the page shows deaths within the Green Line (where suicide bombs take place). The table you looked at are deaths within the territories.[/b]

So suicide bombings that don&#39;t happen within the green line don&#39;t count????

Look at January. Still 0 Israeli deaths. What about those 11 Israelis killed in the Jerusalem suicide bombing?

<!--QuoteBegin-putty

I take it that I have a point.
[/quote]

So no.. you don&#39;t have a point, not by a long shot. Your ignoring certain suicide bombings so the figures don&#39;t look too high then your turning to me and saying "See I told you so&#33;"

Thats blatant dishonesty.

Interesting "case in point" on B&#39;Tselem too.

One Palestinian civilian was killed by gunfire when IDF soldiers forced him to serve as their human shield.

Who are the terrorists again?

[putty]

-1 point for attempted diversion.

Only deaths (it&#39;s actually deaths that are counted, not suicide bombs) within the Green Line are counted because that&#39;s where suicide attacks take place. Btselem separates killings outside the green line from these.

Run a google on green line if you&#39;re confused about why this is.

The numbers killed outside the green line is negligible the past few months (4 total since Sept 03), not affecting the stats. So again, I take it that I do have a point.

[leftism]

I&#39;ve got you on this one putty.

BT&#39;selem has 0 deaths in January.

Heres a suicide bombing in Jerusalem in January. 11 deaths.

January 2004

So either...

1. The suicide bombing took place just outside the green line.
2. BT&#39;selem have got their figures wrong.

Either way you don&#39;t have a point because you are not taking all the deaths caused by suicide bombings into account.

[putty]

Sorry to have to ruin your little celebration but...

All Btselem stats (and just for you... including ALL deaths no matter where they are):

Oct 01 to Feb 02: 77 civilian deaths

March 02 to July 02: 185

August 02 to Dec 02: 63

Jan 03 to May 03: 50

June 03 to Oct 03: 76

Nov 03 to March 04: 23 (or 34 including Btselem&#39;s forgotten 11).

The past 5 months has seen the lowest number of Israeli civilian deaths since at least October 2001, counting everyone. Inside the Green Line, outside the Green Line, whatever you want to count.

Now I don&#39;t know about you but it seems to me that Israel has been doing something right the past 5 months. Is it the separation wall? Is it the fact that Israel is giving Hamas and Fatah leadership something to worry about aside from whether to tell the bombers to stand at the front or back of the bus?

Or is it that the new leaders are being pressured to act too quickly, sending out 16 year olds to commit mass murder before they&#39;re fully "indoctrinated", as what happened today. The boy was practically in tears, begging for a pair of scissors instead of 72 virgins.

Whatever it is, it&#39;s working.

[cpt_azad]

To turn it round, if the Palestinians somehow managed to kill Sharon (he is a war criminal who&#39;s killed innocent people)

absolutely true.

Again the lot of you can harp on this assassination like it&#39;s the end all be all of crimes. There&#39;s isn&#39;t this uproar when a suicide bomber rushes a busy store full of women and children.......with the intent of killing women and children.

also true. freedom fighter or not, suicide bombings are just plain wrong, islam doesn&#39;t teach suicides or support it contrary to "popular" belief. unless anyone can get me a legible source that (straight from the muslims holy book the quran) says other wise. and also, killing this leader is an act of war as stated many times and just makes the situation worst, the world&#39;s gov&#39;t&#39;s would definately go to war with palestine (even there is no such thing as palestine now) if some palestinians killed sharon. but i don&#39;t understand everytime someone says something nice about the palestinians, some wise ass has to reply "uh, suicide bombers are wrong, don&#39;t support terrorism. duh, i mean uh, the arabs in israel are bad". seriously guys, calm down and start looking at the whole picture. when was the last time someone called Israel a nation run by terrorists? so here goes:

ISRAEL IS A NATION RUN BY NOTHING MORE THAN TERRORISTS (Gov&#39;t, not the ppl of israel, i have nothing against the jews as i&#39;m not a racist). as i said suicide bombings are wrong, but someone pls answer me this, how do you end a conflict when both opposing parties are terrorists?

[leftism]

Originally posted by putty+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (putty)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>
Nov 03 to March 04: 23 (or 34 including Btselem&#39;s forgotten 11).
[/b]

How many others have BT&#39;selem "forgotten"? Yet your happy to rely on these figures??

Why dont you use your Gvts own figures? Because you know it&#39;ll prove you wrong.

Think about what your doing for a moment. Your pretending that some Israeli&#39;s haven&#39;t been killed in suicide bombings so you can prove a point on a forum.

That&#39;s seriously twisted.

You can argue that illegal "targeted assassinations" that also kill innocent bystanders are going to decrease the number of suicide bombings all you want.

Common sense and history agrees with the original poster. It just adds fuel to the fire.

Your problem is that your thirsty for revenge. Thats why you hardly blink when an IDF soldier uses a Palestinian civilian as a human shield. Don&#39;t try and pretend that this desire for revenge is really a desire for peace and security.

PS

Your information regarding that kid today is incorrect. Just like your information regarding suicide bombers is incorrect.

<!--QuoteBegin-putty
I just saw a news report showing that just today a 16 year old Palestinian suicide bomber was stopped at the border of entry into Israel. He was already wearing his suicide vest but decided that he didn&#39;t want to go through with it and requested a pair of scissors which was sent to him via a robot[/quote]

1. He was 14.
2. He didn&#39;t decide he didn&#39;t want to go through with it. The soldiers became suspicious when he approached a check point.

[putty]

Lefty I&#39;ve seen you dodge facts before when you can&#39;t admit that you&#39;re wrong but this is too much.

You think that I&#39;m using Btselem stats because they prove me right? If I came here with Israeli Govt stats you&#39;d be screaming that those are biased. Btselem is world-renowned as a Left-wing Israeli organization that is a staunch defender of the Palestinians. If they somehow missed one bombing, well maybe they&#39;ve missed others. But I strongly doubt that they&#39;ve only missed ones from the past 5 months in order to prove me right that successful attacks have decreased. You give me too much credit.

But ok. I&#39;ll do your homework for you and use IDF stats. They don&#39;t break it down month by month but do year by year.

http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/mfa/terrorism...nce%20September

In 2002: 451 deaths

In 2003: 213 deaths

In 2004: 29 deaths through 3 months (rate of ~120 for the year)

So, you didn&#39;t like the Btselem stats and asked why I didn&#39;t use IDF stats. Now, what will your excuse be now? Should I go research the Mongolian stats before you believe what has been proven to you?

If you don&#39;t admit that you&#39;re wrong by now, well then... you never will.

The kid was 14 and not 16? Cool. It just proves that Hamas is getting more desperate. 14 year olds aren&#39;t exactly known for their nerves of steel. Or maybe he was only promised 52 virgins and he figured it was a raw deal. Or perhaps being a 14 year old, he doesn&#39;t appreciate the value of a virgin.

BTW, I&#39;m not Israeli. I realize that in your mind only Israelis could possibly see Israel&#39;s right to defend itself but you&#39;ve gotta open your eyes to the rest of the world. It just ain&#39;t that simple.