A Period of Calm between Israel and the Palestinians - Some graphs

What a 'period of calm' looks like in the Occupied Territories

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Three months have passed since the ceasefire that brought an end to Israel's eight-day attack on the Gaza Strip known as Operation "Pillar of Defence". This infographic depicts the number of attacks on the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military during this three-month period, as well as the number of Palestinian attacks emanating from Gaza. Since late November, Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have averaged over one a day, everyday. These include shootings by troops positioned along the border fence, attacks on fishermen working off the Gaza coast, and incursions by the Israeli army.

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http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Ima...41595734_8.jpg

...so basically peace = Israel business as usual but with no come back. Doubtless those craaaazy terrorists will start "provoking" Israel again soon, which will give them a free pass to bomb a building or something.

Show me the number of new setllements in the same period

Graph is wrong by the way, there were rocket attacks when tne inkt wasn't even dry

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Originally Posted by Fragony

Show me the number of new setllements in the same period

Graph is wrong by the way, there were rocket attacks when tne inkt wasn't even dry

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The rocket attacks occurred prior to zero hour on the ceasefire. The information collected is from the first full day of the ceasefire. Your comment is moot. After the signing of the Armistice in November of 1918, combatants on both sides went right on shooting up until zero hour, which was within the letter of the agreement. This ceasefire functioned just the same.


My concern would be for the validity of the numbers based on the sources listed. However, quibbling over specific numbers would not obviate Idaho's basic point, to wit, that the Israeli's are still shooting (if much less frequently) while the Palestinians (other than one hotheaded mortar team) are not. He's suggesting that it isn't much of a ceasefire at all, that the borders are still functionally closed, and that this period of calm is working only to the advantage of Israel.

What say you to that?

I'd say that 1918 was a long time ago. The current cease-fire was broken by Hamas (not sure about that one really) day one

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

What say you to that?

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He says that his opinions revolve around fixed points: Israel is always right, and A-rabs are crazy nutjobs who shouldn't/don't exist and who have no justification for fighting/living/protesting.

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Originally Posted by Idaho

He says that his opinions revolve around fixed points: Israel is always right, and A-rabs are crazy nutjobs who shouldn't/don't exist and who have no justification for fighting/living/protesting.

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Sure mia muca, i plead guilty, not much use doing anything else is there as you seem to have made up your mind. But it still wasn't Israel that broke the truce.

It's a ceasefire until an Israeli dies, then it's a start of hostilities due to the continued use of terror tactics by the Hamas government.

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Originally Posted by Fragony

I'd say that 1918 was a long time ago. The current cease-fire was broken by Hamas (not sure about that one really) day one

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The whole point was that they fired on day -1 since the ceasefire wasn't effective immediately so what you say is wrong and it seems you didn't understand the point Seamus made.

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Originally Posted by Strike For The South

It's a ceasefire until an Israeli dies, then it's a start of hostilities due to the continued use of terror tactics by the Hamas government.

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That seems to be how it works, but I can't say anything against it as that would make me an antisemite, especially with my passport.
It's only okay if I let them use my passport to go and murder preventatively remove iranian scientists.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

The rocket attacks occurred prior to zero hour on the ceasefire. The information collected is from the first full day of the ceasefire. Your comment is moot. After the signing of the Armistice in November of 1918, combatants on both sides went right on shooting up until zero hour, which was within the letter of the agreement. This ceasefire functioned just the same.


My concern would be for the validity of the numbers based on the sources listed. However, quibbling over specific numbers would not obviate Idaho's basic point, to wit, that the Israeli's are still shooting (if much less frequently) while the Palestinians (other than one hotheaded mortar team) are not. He's suggesting that it isn't much of a ceasefire at all, that the borders are still functionally closed, and that this period of calm is working only to the advantage of Israel.

What say you to that?

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Oh come on Seamus - you're a leftist communist baby-eater, of course you support the terrorists!!

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It's a ceasefire until an Palestinian dies, then it's a start of hostilities due to the continued use of terror tactics by the Israeli government.

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!!!

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Originally Posted by Husar

The whole point was that they fired on day -1 since the ceasefire wasn't effective immediately so what you say is wrong

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Nope. Not claiming Hamas did it though, I don't know who did

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I'd say that 1918 was a long time ago

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..you mean 48, right?

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But it still wasn't Israel that broke the truce

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Forcing an enemy into breaking a truce, well, y'know. It's not that clear-cut, especially when it comes to this particular situation. Economically and politically, Gaza cannot properly function, at least not with the current blockade.

There is a blockade because it's in Hamas charters to destroy the Israeli state, the second-fattest people have hardly anything to complain about because offthe billions of aid they get, despite the fact that they must kill the jews wherever they find them they are treated pretty good I'd say. They even got their own wall to wail at. Fuck'em.

Yeah, Fragony, whatever you say.

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Originally Posted by Hax

Yeah, Fragony, whatever you say.

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Yeahyeah, want to see the Hamas charters, or what they say on Palestinian tv ad teach in schools with EU money, Morsi is on it by the way yay arab spring. Ask and I'll deliver.

I've never seen you deliver jack squat.

The thing is that you're not even remotely interested in considering statements that might suggest a different perception on events. This is a sad trait that I often also witness in religious extremists, who either disqualify anything they disagree with as a conspiracy, or otherwise an attack on their religion and as such, not worth considering.

Yes, I know the Hamas charter. I can also read it in its original language, which I suppose is something you can't. That still has nothing to do with the actual events on the ground occuring right now. You're living in a sad fantasy world if you honestly believe that whatever is happening down there is due to a dated manuscript that the members themselves don't even believe in anymore and that whatever is happening to civilians that risk their lives trying to make a living deserve what is happening to them.

Islam does as it does as it is it's nature to do it, claiming anything else is the Stockholm-Syndrome by proxy islamapoligists tend to suffer from. Islam is a vile ideoligy and a cancer for civilisation.

Islam is nothing and it has nothing to do with this conflict; however, it is used by people trying to portray everything as a black-and-white conflict between good and evil, such as people posting on forums who are not in the slightest bit interested in figuring out what is in fact going on.

And Hamas, of course.

Being a muslim means nothing. But Islam has no place here, or anywhere

The notion of desert ideology cannot applied to Islam at all. According to the traditional Muslim narrative, it was founded in an urban environment. Going by that notion, one of the elements it incorporated was traditional Arabic spiritualism, apart from "heretical" Christian and Jewish spiritual traditions. In addition to that, it sought to unite a deeply divided urban community where tribal affliliations often played a very important role. Whether or not that succeeded is up to debate. I'd say no.

Even the other narrative, which has recently been proposed by certain Islamologists and historians of the late antiquity seeks to place the crystallisation of Islamic tradition in ‘Abbasid Baghdad, taking traditions along the Silk Road and add Buddhist elements to that particular religion.

Apart from that, the notion of a "desert" religion is completely idiotic. I don't have enough words to describe how incredibly silly it is. It's arse gravy.

Oh, but Fragony, how many times do you need to realise that people that evidently know more about the issues you assume know everything about, disagree with you; whether it's about the European Union, Dutch colonialism or the Middle-East? It's okay not to know anything. What's far worse is to pretend you do.

As I see it, a immigrant leaves his shit behind, a colonist takes it with him. Simple as that.

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Originally Posted by Fragony

cancer for civilisation.

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It's sad to see yet another group being called that. Some people learned nothing from the holocaust.

You've sunk to a new low, frags.

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

It's sad to see yet another group being called that. Some people learned nothing from the holocaust.

You've sunk to a new low, frags.

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Oh, is it really me who learned nothing from the holocaust, because I think it's you who learned nothing from it

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Originally Posted by Fragony

Oh, is it really me who learned nothing from the holocaust, because I think it's you who learned nothing from it

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Yeah, we had plenty of fun last time we called a group of people a "cancer to civilization".

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

Yeah, we had plenty of fun last time we called a group of people a "cancer to civilization".

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Not calling a group of people a cancer, I am calling an ideoligy one. Muslims are welcome here. There is a difference, period.

Meanwhile, logic is seen running from the conversation screaming.

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Originally Posted by HoreTore

Oh come on Seamus - you're a leftist communist baby-eater, of course you support the terrorists!!

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I chuckled at this.

As you have no doubt guessed, I do not concur with Idaho's assessment -- while well intentioned, assessing any single ceasefire in that region (and especially among those combatants) in isolation will not produce enough of a "whole" story to evaluate. It just galls me that some individuals can miss his whole point so completely. You don't have to agree with someone's point in order to acknowledge it, but such an acknowledgement is a courtesy that SHOULD be part of any politely argued discussion.

As a scholar of conflict management and, at least for a time, a court appointed mediator, I am of the opinion that both parties need to dispense with the parsiflage and get down to some serious blood-letting. Until one party (loose terminology of course, there are a myriad of sub-groups involved) has been defeated, or at least shocked enough to bargain seriously (as in, bargaining with the knowledge that BOTH parties must achieve real value in order to uphold the deal), nothing productive will occur at the negotiating table.

Israel and Egypt were not capable of bargaining usefully until after the Yom Kippur war. In that dust-up, Egypt came within days of breaking the Israeli military and plowing Israel under -- which scared the Israelis. On the other hand, Israel demonstrated that it could still pull off miracles and that a "successful" Yom Kippur war redux would have required LOTS of dead Egyptians. Having finally proven that a purely military answer was too risky, they were able to sit down at Camp David and cut a deal. Until an analogous level of pain is engendered in the Hamas/Israeli war, no lasting deal will occur. Cynical perhaps, but I think supportable as an argument. They have to stop talking and kill each other for a while so that maybe they can then talk and listen.

Hardly the position of your typical leftist infantophage. I suspect that the little darlings would crisp up too quickly on the grill anyways.

You are right. Israel with the preponderance of power will eventually reduce the Palestinians to dust.

The choice the Palestinians face is comparable to that facing Native Americans in Canada and the US; relinquish all to the aggressor: simply take what scraps are offered and live impoverished but peaceful; fight to the last drop and cease to exist.

The "right of might" has not disappeared from international relations, though most would blanch at that characterization.

Where did he get that Info? There are absolutely no source info on that, so the numbers could have been pulled out of thin air.

Thank you for sharing this story. It is not terribly surprising. Terror attacks began in Palestine with Jews bombing Palestinian hotels in 1946. There are always two sides to a story, regardless of how much one wants to deny it.

Well, we have to put a sidenote to that.

Attacks against the British started in the 1920s and basically continued until the 1948 war. There were isolated incidents of Jews against Palestinians and the other way around, but the majority of attacks were directed towards the British.

Interesting infograph, but I wonder how many of those killed/injured on the Palestinian side were Hamas and how many were civilians.

Latest news is that the terrorist Palestinians are having a violent one day hunger strike which has prompted the ever patient Israeli state to demand the Palestinian authority "deal with" the protests. How long before Israel sends the benign and just ground attack jets to take out some terrorist installations hidden under schools etc?

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Originally Posted by Idaho

Latest news is that the terrorist Palestinians are having a violent one day hunger strike which has prompted the ever patient Israeli state to demand the Palestinian authority "deal with" the protests.

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What are you implying with the ""deal with"" remark? They presumably weren't hinting at anything violent on Hamas' part since these protesters are in Israeli jails. It is only natural that they are going to ask Hamas to take action when its own people are making a dissident response.

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How long before Israel sends the benign and just ground attack jets to take out some terrorist installations hidden under schools etc?

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I realise that Israel has the power to play the bully and often does, but the reality is that Hamas do hide behind civilian targets and structures.

Gaza is a large city full of civilian buildings. I think it's likely that any overt hamas military installation has long since been bombed. Where would they likely be?

Are you an ulster unionist by any chance?

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Originally Posted by Idaho

Are you an ulster unionist by any chance?

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Well I only lived in Ulster a short while but yeah I guess I would identify with that on some level. I'm trying to steer a bit more clear of that world these days though. Hence the change of sig that I made earlier today as it turns out.

I should add that I would think I am a moderate on the Israel/Gaza issue, and also not very clued up on it. I just thought that the way info was presented on the OP was potentially quite misleading, and your tone on the matter was a bit unfair.

There is nothing fair about the situation. It's well worth reading up a little about the history :-)

Well, what could you expect from a ruling coalition that's led by a party of which the founding charter denies the Palestinians have a right of self-determination, whose leader by his own admission has decided to interpret the Oslo Accords in bad faith and which is backed by a bunch of religious extremists who rather wish all the dirty muslims would just go bugger off, even if they have Israeli nationality.

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Interesting infograph, but I wonder how many of those killed/injured on the Palestinian side were Hamas and how many were civilians.

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That's an important distinction on a moral level, but rather besides the point when we're talking about a ceasefire...

The Palestinians have broken the ceasefire - the Israeli police say so! The rascals!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/21583481

"Yeah we shot a few Palestianians over the last few weeks but that's nothing compared to someone blowing up a shed next to a factory".

Have some sympathy with the tarmac, please.

At least observe the backroom tradition of holding off jokes until it's (back) in the ground...