Hamas attacks Israel

Taxslave2

House Member
Aug 13, 2022
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Not what I asked, but the answer is as expected.
No one deserves what Hamas has done to the region. Those Jewish women at the concert didn't deserve to get raped and murdered either. Unfortunately, until Hamas and their backers (Iran mostly) are disposed of, it will continue.
 

Serryah

Executive Branch Member
Dec 3, 2008
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No one deserves what Hamas has done to the region. Those Jewish women at the concert didn't deserve to get raped and murdered either. Unfortunately, until Hamas and their backers (Iran mostly) are disposed of, it will continue.

No, the men, women and children at the concert did NOT deserve to get murdered and kidnapped and no one deserved to be raped.

But I am asking if those children deserve to be starved into malnutrition and death.

Also, your belief that Hamas being "disposed of" will fix everything completely shows your continued ignorance to the situation. The reality is, at this point because of Israel's genocide, even if Hamas were vaporized two seconds from now, another element just as bad, if not worse, would rise to take its place.
 
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petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
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Low Earth Orbit
If Beau Again was paying attention...

Wahhabrews...

Saudi Arabia and Israel quietly prepare ‘deal of the century’.

Saudis. The Saudis have generally sought to ‘test the water’ and gauge Saudi public reaction to the moves. News of the meetings was leaked to the media.

In 2015, both countries acknowledged that they had been holding secret meetings to discuss Iranian ambitions in the region, though they conceded there remained differences over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

There were public meetings, too. In 2016, former Saudi Intelligence Chief Prince Turki al-Faisal met and shook hands publicly with General Yaakov Amidror, a former senior advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Washington Institute, a pro-Israel think tank in Washington.

Later in 2016, a former Saudi General, Anwar Eshki, leading a team of businessmen and academics, held unprecedented talks with Israeli members of the Knesset. Eshki has since appeared on television speaking in favour of a deal with Israel.

Major game changer​

The biggest game changer may be the almost certain ascent of the 31-year old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the Saudi throne. MbS, as he is often referred to now, is close to Jared Kushner. He is also keen to make a foreign policy mark to eclipse local and international doubts about his youth, governing ability and statesmanship, particularly given his role in the catastrophic developments in Yemen, which attracted widespread international criticism.

Mohammed bin Salman is surrounded by advisors known for sympathetic positions towards Israel and hostility to Islamist groups such as Hamas. One of them is Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, an influential journalist-turned-political-advisor, whose anti-Hamas rhetoric has normalised criticism of the Palestinian group in Saudi media. Al-Rashed has lobbied to label Hamas as a terrorist organisation, a position adopted by Israel for many years.

Despite the clear cosying up, the Saudis still say the Israelis will have to offer the Palestinians a deal, or a variation of that; something the Saudis can build upon. The starting position should be Israeli acceptance of the Arab Peace Initiative, promoted by the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia in 2002. The plan calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state on the borders of 1967.

‘Saudi Arabia’s and Israel’s shared antipathy for Iran is the principal factor drawing them together. However, for the foreseeable future, this relationship will remain in the shadows, both because of the nature of the cooperation and because formal Saudi diplomatic recognition of Israel depends upon an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, which does not seem forthcoming,’ says Perry Cammack, a fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

To grease the wheels of the deal, the Saudis tout economic opportunities with the wealthy, oil-rich countries of the Gulf. Perks will include direct telecommunication, Israeli airlines flying over the airspace of Gulf States and no trade restrictions with Israeli companies. Israeli officials themselves estimate immediate benefits upwards of $45bn. Reportedly, the two countries have already been negotiating undisclosed trade deals.

‘I see this as mutual manipulation for different ends with a shared view of Iran. Israel can brag about its access to Arab leaders, including the UAE, and Israeli visits to Gulf conferences, and the Saudis build their reputation with Congress as being friendly with Israel,’ says Charles Smith, Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern History at the University of Arizona. ‘But, the Palestinian issue cannot be discarded as Bibi [Netanyahu] hopes.’

Indeed, Riyadh has so far shied away from a clear public position. Undemocratic and gripped by self-promoted notions that their own Arab public is not sufficiently informed or educated to make a decision on relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia – like many other Arab regimes – prefers contact with Israel, technically still an occupier of Arab land, away from the public gaze. Direct Saudi-Israel contacts have almost all been ‘covert’ or ‘unofficial’, with a few leaks.

On 6 September, Simon Aran, Israeli Diplomatic Correspondent for the Israel Broadcasting Authority (KNN) tweeted that ‘a top official from the Gulf’ was secretly visiting Israel and that Netanyahu’s office and the Israeli Foreign Ministry refused to comment on the news. But, sensing the opportunity and the timing, several Israeli officials have urged the Saudis to press ahead with a ‘public’ agreement and contacts independent of the Palestinian issue.

Immediately after Trump flew directly from Riyadh to Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on Twitter: ‘I hope one day an Israeli prime minister will be able to fly from Tel Aviv to Riyadh.’ Israel’s hawkish Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman called for ‘full diplomatic and economic relations’.

After describing shared interest in countering rival Iran and political Islamists, Israel’s Intelligence and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz said he wanted similar treatment of the Israelis to that extended to President Trump. ‘I call upon Salman, the King of Saudi Arabia, to invite the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, to visit Saudi Arabia,’ Katz said in June at the annual Herzliya Conference, a venue for new Israeli national strategy initiatives. ‘We saw what a wonderful host you can be... when President Trump was there. You can also send your heir, the new one, Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He’s a dynamic person. He is an initiator. And he wants to break through.’

When that happens, the public in Arab countries will have seen the ‘deal of the century’.

Emad Mekay is the IBA’s Middle East Correspondent. He can be contacted at emekay@stanford.edu

 
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Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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“Gut yontiff Ramadan Mubarak!” more so that Gut yontiff Shemini Atzeret as we hit March 10th 2024.

Though Shemini Atzeret is connected to but separate than the seven days of the festival of Sukkot, and immediately follows it as literally the eighth day holy day devoted to the spiritual aspects of the festival of Sukkot. It was celebrated from Sunset, 6 October – nightfall, 7 October…
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Ramadan is a holy month of fasting that marks the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and is observed by Muslims all over the world, and it’s celebrated from the evening of Sunday March 10th through to April 9th of 2024. Does Ramadan for Muslims trump Shemini Atzer for Jews?
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Hamas leaders are betting that the holy month of Ramadan can turn the momentum of the war in Gaza in their favor, heaping diplomatic pressure on Israel to stop its offensive and help secure the militant Islamist group’s survival.

Hamas’s chief in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, is also calculating that Ramadan, which begins with the new-moon sighting expected Monday or Tuesday, could spark violence near religious sites in Jerusalem, expanding the conflict beyond Gaza and drawing Iran and Hezbollah deeper and more directly into his war against Israel, according to political analysts.

Israel has warned that unless a deal is reached by Ramadan to release hostages and pause the fighting, its military will push ahead with plans to attack Hamas in its last stronghold of Rafah on Gaza’s southern border, where an estimated 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering.
A source had earlier said Israel was staying away from the Cairo talks because Hamas refused to provide a list of hostages who are still alive. Hamas says this is “impossible without a ceasefire” as hostages are scattered across the war zone? Really?
Cease-fire talks are expected to resume Sunday (The beginning of Ramadan). But their halting progress is increasing the likelihood of an Israeli assault against Hamas in Rafah, the last major city in Gaza that Israeli forces haven’t taken.
(The main Gaza-based terror organization refused to address Jerusalem’s demand to provide a list of living hostages and to lock down how many “Palestinian” prisoners Israel must release for every hostage freed)

Be honest - do these kids deserve this?

(Don't bring in the other hunger/famine situations; we're talking just Gaza now, NOT elsewhere).
“Hamas thinks the month of Ramadan will serve its interests,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist at Al-Azhar University in Gaza who is now based in Cairo. Hamas leaders’ belief that the holy month will increase international pressure on Israel to end the war is “why they keep saying they are in no rush” to agree to a cease-fire, he said.
It’s a risky strategy for Hamas. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is worsening, with a growing share of the population struggling to find food. Discontent is rising over Hamas’s refusal to agree to halt the fighting.
Despite charging that Israel’s unwillingness to accept the terror group’s demands was the reason a deal hasn’t progressed, a Hamas official told the UK-based Qatari outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that it will not provide any further details on the hostages without Israel paying a “big price” for it.
Husam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political leadership, said Ramadan can be a time of tensions even in years without a major war, but he said the blame for any unrest lay with Israel’s invasion of Gaza and its occupation of the West Bank.

“It’s a predictable thing that during Ramadan, people are doing things differently, with more emotions,” Badran said.

In recent years Ramadan has often been a month of increased violence between Israelis and Palestinians. During Ramadan, Muslims typically fast in daylight hours, pray at mosques, decorate their homes and gather with family and friends in the evenings to eat. The lack of food in Gaza means this year many Palestinians will go hungry out of necessity rather than ritual.
It is believed that 130 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza — not all of them alive — after the November truce and the recovery of several other hostages and bodies.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said on Sunday that the death toll in the war had surpassed 30,400 people, with an additional 71,700 people having been injured.
Few Palestinians are in a celebratory mood either. More than 30,000 residents of Gaza have been killed in Israel’s invasion of the enclave, according to Palestinian health authorities, whose figures don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. An Israeli ground assault in Rafah could cause a steep rise in that toll, as the city is covered in the tents of refugees from the rest of the strip…like the “Iron Dome that is suppose to protect Israel from attacks from above.”
The terror group’s figures are unverified, do not differentiate between civilians and combatants, and list all the fatalities as caused by Israel — even those believed to have been caused by hundreds of misfired rockets or otherwise by Palestinian fire.
From Israel’s perspective, entering Rafah is the only way to complete its war aim of destroying Hamas as a military organization. Israeli officials say five months of fighting in Gaza would be for naught if Israeli forces don’t take out Hamas’s final bastion.
Israel’s military estimates it has damaged 18 of 24 of Hamas’s battalions, each made up of roughly 1,000 soldiers, and that four of the remaining battalions are in Rafah. The city is also considered the main way station for Hamas to smuggle weapons from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula into the strip.
So….why do Hamas & Friends NOT want to identify the names of the surviving hostages from the remaining total abducted from Israel on Oct 7th, 2023???
This is a huge question!! Very important. The invasion was triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel on the Holy of Shemini Atzeret in which the U.S.-designated terrorist group killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 200 hostages, according to Israel.
Hamas has refused to release all of the estimated 100 hostages it holds, and the remains of around 30 more, unless Israel ends its offensive, withdraws from Gaza and releases a large number of Palestinian prisoners, including senior militants serving life sentences.
Israel has delayed major ground operations in Rafah until now to allow time for negotiations aimed at a temporary cease-fire and the freeing of hostages, said Udi Dekel, a retired Israeli brigadier general and a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. But if those talks fail to achieve anything, then Israel no longer has a reason to hold off, he said.
U.S. officials have said that they are skeptical that Hamas actually wants a deal, because the group has balked at a number of what the U.S. and others believe are legitimate requests, including giving the names of hostages to be released.
For weeks, U.S. and Arab officials have been pushing Israel and Hamas to agree to a six-week truce ahead of Ramadan in return for the release of some hostages.
Israel was still waiting for Hamas to hand over a list of hostages who are alive as well as the hostage-to-prisoner ratio it seeks in any release deal, an Israeli official said.
Aware of the U.S. and international pressure on Israel, Hamas leader Sinwar is now demanding that Israel commit to stop its war in Gaza permanently, rather than to a temporary cease-fire.
When asked whether Hamas has a list of the surviving hostages, Hamdan said that the matter wasn’t relevant (???) to the talks and accused Israel of using it as an excuse to avoid engaging in the negotiations.
Seriously? Not relevant? I bet it’s relevant to the human shield over Rafah. “This is the breaking point in the negotiations, because Hamas does not want to give the only card they have, which is the hostages, in return for temporary cease-fire,” said Ghassan Khatib, a lecturer at Birzeit University in the West Bank.
 
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Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
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The Hamas terror group’s figures are unverified, do not differentiate between civilians and combatants, and list all the fatalities as caused by Israel — even those believed to have been caused by hundreds of misfired rockets or otherwise by Palestinian fire.

So….why do Hamas & Friends NOT want to identify the names of the surviving hostages from the remaining total abducted from Israel on Oct 7th, 2023???

Why does Hamas say a list of the surviving hostages isn’t relevant to the peace process for a “temporary” (depending on who’s describing it?) ceasefire?

Why would Hamas position its last four intact battalions under Rafah if they gave even two shits about their Palestinian civilian body armour, if that’s accurate information?