AI report on Hamas killing off political opponents

In general if you can't be bothered to refute it properly leave it to someone who can. Khawaga said he'll do it. It's best not to leave propaganda unchallenged but there's also little point debating someone who is arguing a set viewpoint rather than debating and clearly unable to read responses and respond to them critically.

He's also admitted Israel carries out ethnic cleansing which is unusual for a zionist. When he says Israel does not want to rule over palestinians he gets really into the Israeli form of white man's burden.

Benyamin try reading this.

Israel was reluctant to rule over the Palestinian people to begin with and, contrary to anti-Israel propaganda, Israel DID NOT want to carry out ethnic cleansing.

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

Hamas rule in Gaza is the real brutal and illegal occupation. Unlike Israel, which won Gaza in a war of self-defense in 1967, Hamas conquered Gaza from an illegal coup. If Hamastan is a "free" Palestinian state, then the "freedom" is a total joke. Gazans under Hamas are less free than they were under Israel, which just sought to defend itself from rejectionist terrorism.

Hamas rule is a complete disgrace however Fatah rule was a total joke aswell. Also I think Gazans would prefer living under Hamas(even if they are religious nuts) than under Israel although I could be wrong.

Hamas is worse than Israel, worse than Sharon.
I can provide more.

Why? Because I come up with a different view from you guys. Seriously, I think I turned into an obsession for people in this forum just because I come up with different views.

jweidner wrote:

seriously. there is no point in engagement from what i can tell.

Why? Because I come up with a different view from you guys. Seriously, I think I turned into an obsession for people in this forum just because I come up with different views.

Benyamin, you should perhaps listen to Tree - he is an Israeli who has been exposed to the propaganda you tout as fact for his whole life. He is able to smell a rat.

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

Israel's wars are wars of survival, for the Jewish people in their historical homeland.

historical homeland? is this some mystical ahistorical concept?
Why is that portion of the world anymore a Jewish historical homeland than other places in the world where Jewish people have lived for hundreds, if not thousands, in some cases, of years?
Like all nationalisms, Zionism's foundation myth is simply an irrational fairytale. There is no homeland; that is not to say that Jews should not be in Palestine, or that they "don't have a right" to be there. I believe anybody should live wherever they like. What I don't believe in is justifying the violent displacement of other people who are not entitled to "our homeland."

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

but nothing happened and the Arab states kept on saying the same thing called NO! The only exception was when Sadat offered peace and when Israel accepted. As a result, Egypt got back the Sanai and was ferociously denounced by Arab leaders and by movements within the Arab and Muslim world [Egypt was even suspended by the Arab League for about a decade]. If Israel did not fight in the Six day war, then it would've been destroyed and there would've been a genocidal bloodbath.

Really? You think "the Arab leaders" would have murdered every Jew in the Middle East just like that? It took the Nazis years and years of implementing systematized and brutally efficient death camps to commit a genocidal bloodbath of the Jews, and yet the Arabs could have killed all the Jews, or untold numbers of them, on the spur of the moment because of some diplomatic mishap? How do you think they could have implemented a genocidal plan like that? Do you think vast Arab armies would have mercilessly gunned down Jewish men, women and children on sight? I think, for all your claims to objectivity, that betrays a conviction that Arabs are inherently barbaric and irrationally hateful toward the Jews.

We are engaged in defensive fighting on the Egyptian sector, and we shall not engage ourselves in any action against Jordan, unless Jordan attacks us. Should Jordan attack Israel, we shall go against her with all our might.

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

Put yourself in the Israeli government's position at the time. How would you feel if you were the government of a small state and heard countries all around you, like the leaders, media and political cartoons, brag that they would destroy your nation and kill your people and even sends up troops to your borders to prepare to do it. That was exactly the position Israel was in in 1967.

Put yourself in the Arab population's shoes at the time. Do you think they were all a bunch of rabid antisemites just waiting for a chance to kill some Jews?
States have fallen before and have been swollen up by other states without "genocidal bloodbaths" occurring. After WW1 Hungary lost 74% of its territories to other surrounding countries. There was no mass executions or "genocidal bloodbath" of Hungarians in either of these countries, and the ethnic tensions in Eastern Europe are just as intense as any in the Middle East. There are of course countless other historical examples.
You seem to be operating with the notion that Israel is an absolutely unique situation and that the ethnic hostilities between Jews and Arabs are unlike any other in history. Well that's a bunch of bull.

Instead of judging Arab people by the propaganda of their governments, you should instead try to understand their perspective as it actually exists, not as is reported by the media. As you have reluctantly admitted earlier, most Arabs/Muslims do not have an irrational hatred of the Jews; and yet you are convinced that they wouldn't flinch about committing genocide against Israel. There's a big fucking contradiction there staring you right in the eye.

So the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood had a tolerated presence, despite its rejectionism vis-a-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict and despite its Islamic Fundamentalist worldview. It is true that Israel's view of te Muslim Brotherhood movement within the disputed territories was deluded.

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

You're right that Hamas does want to keep this war going. Hamas would rather have the Palestinians suffer than have peace with Israel or any non-Muslim power. Your last claim there that "The terror struggle is led by the Israeli government on one hand, and Hamas/Fatah on the other, against the Israeli and Palestinian working classes" gives a moral equivalence when there isn't one and looks at the conflict through a distorted class-like setting.

how is it distorted? Israeli workers are drafted into the army, where they are told that if you tell someone you're gonna kill them before you kill them, then everything is ok, where they are indoctrinated with the insane and murderous ethos of nationalism, where they are taught that the enemy is always Arab terrorists, never Israeli bosses who live off the work of Israeli workers like them?
Equally, Palestinians are made to fight in a war that benefits them not one bit, but brings great profit to the thugs who run Hamas and Fatah.
How is this distorted? The vast majority of Israelis and Palestinians have nothing to gain from the war; their political leaders do. Don't tell me that the Israeli politicians have nothing to gain from the war, and that it's only the bad Islamic fascists, when the war is on the agenda of every Israeli party, left or right. War is the surest and fastest way to get elected. This is true for any state in the world, including Israel.

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

There is no moral equivalence between Israel, which seeks to defend itself while minimizing the killings done to Palestinian civilians, and the other sides, which sends human bombs and commits all sorts of terror on Israel.

Killing is killing, suicide bombs or not. I don't see how you can minimize killings when you are knowingly attacking civilian areas. And what does minimizing mean anyway? Another useful political weasel word. It does not matter how much you crunch the numbers and how much you "minimize" "damage". At the end of the day, people die for no reason whatsoever.

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

I was just pointing out that Communists themselves launched imperialist wars and were guilty of all sorts of aggression. And you think that me just stating my point of view here, since it is different than form everyone else's view, means that I show more contempt than just casually throwing around a few 'curse words.'" I'm sorry that you can't take opposing views and that you expect everyone to be mindless Marxists or at least mindless Israel-bashers. When Communists take power, they establish brutal dictatorships and kill and torture their political opponents. When their killing records are well-known [as with Stalin], then Communists claim that Stalin didn't represent true Communism. When their killing records aren't well-known, then Communists at least try to whitewash them.

You complain about attempts to "shut you up" and claim that people here are bigots who don't want to hear your arguments, and yet you continue to accuse them of being something they are not. Libertarian communists and anarchists are not Stalinists trying to whitewash the crimes of state Communism. If you had bothered reading the text I pointed you to, you would know that. But it's easier to argue against a strawman and claim that all communists are simply Che Guevara-worshipping "useful idiots."
Libertarian communists do not want to take power of anything, except their own lives. State power is inherently corrupting and can only lead to violence and repression regardless of who yields it. This was true of Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, and is true also of modern "democratic" governments, which, despite their lack of overt support for a system of death camps and gulags, are permanently engaged in imperialist wars and in supporting the capitalist system that expropriates those who work to produce the world's wealth.
No one here is a mindless Marxist (many are only marginally in agreement with Marx), nor an Israel-basher. No one here, unlike Trotskyists and other so-called "Communists" (the kind you describe above included), is supportive of Hamas. These are baseless claims, and only make you look like a troll.

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

Was it tragic that innocent Palestinians died in Israel's operations? Yes. At the same time, those operations were still justified. Innocent Palestinians weren't intentionally killed. Israel accidentally killed them while targeting terrorists and their infrastructure

First of all, yes it was intentional. If you drop bombs on people, they will die. You can't claim ignorance on that one. Second of all, intentionality has nothing to do with it.

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

It's far worse to purposely kill an innocent person than to accidentally kill an innocent person. Look at it this way. What's worse: a car accident or an intentionally murder?

Using weapons against civilian populations is not a car accident. It's not any kind of accident. It is absolutely intentional and premeditated. It boggles the mind how you can not get that. That you would make a distinction between "purposely killing an innocent person" and "accidentally killing an innocent person" in the context of warfare, is equally strange. If an innocent person is innocent, then committing violence against them is an act of naked aggression.

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

If I was a hostage held by Hamas, I wouldn't want to be killed by Israeli bombs [or any bomb]. At war, innocent civilians will at least accidentally get killed. That's one reason why war is such a horrible thing [to say the least]. When it comes to defending yourself, sometimes it's justified.

Amazing. War is terrible, but sometimes it's ok, if you get to do the killing that is.

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

They're not like stuck.

Yes they are. The vast majority of people in all "conflict areas" are precisely stuck. A quick look at the statistics of various organizations like Red Cross and Medecins sans Frontiers will tell you that. Those who manage to escape (obviously there are some), often have to leave everything behind and go live in a "camp" with inhuman conditions. How is any of this justified in your mind? I am genuinely puzzled. How can someone simply gloss over so much human suffering simply to defend a nationalist myth of "self-defense vs. impeding doom"?

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

If Gazans were unable to flee to a safe area despite of Israel's warnings, then why did Hamas encourage them to stay?

Because they want to be seen as having genuine support from the population as opposed to just terrorizing them into submission? Because they want to be seen as the noble resistance railing up the Palestinian people behind them?

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

Does it matter?

Yes it does matter if you are asked to do something under the threat of physical violence or not. It matters quite a bit.

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

But Gazans, who were warned of Israel's attacks by Israel, were able to go to a safe area. It's amazing that people can be naive enough to think that people are just stuck where they are

Who is it that guaranteed this passage of all Gazans to a safe area? Obviously not Hamas. Obviously not the Israeli state. Obviously none of the neighboring states, who were quick to impose quotas and whatnot. The few humanitarian organizations that are able to help are not able to do much.
Let me ask you this, do you think the 2009 attack on Gaza has made you safer? Do you think Hamas has now realized the error of their ways, and do you think the Israeli government is working for peace when not bombing people out of their homes? Do you think the deaths of 1200 and something innocent civilians has achieved anything for either side?

Ilan Pappe and Walid Shoebat are posting on this thread?

So Ilan Pappe also makes the same claims. Yet he is a radical anti-Israel activist and is even a member of the Israeli Communist party [which you guys might support].

What you're doing here is essentially equivalent to if I came into a discussion on a Zionist forum about whether Kadima or Likud is best placed to defend Israel's interests, and started whinging about the fact that neither of them has outlined a coherent platform for overthrowing the bourgeoisie and abolishing wage labour. It'd be true, but it would have nothing to do with what everyone else was talking about.

There certainly have been very plausible opportunities for a political settlement over many years, in fact, just to mention a few which have disappeared from history because they're too inconvenient: in February 1971 President Sadat of Egypt offered a full peace treaty to Israel on the pre-June 67 borders. In accordance with official American policy, incidentally, but not operative policy, offering nothing to the Palestinians, he didn't even offer them a Palestinian state, nothing. Nevertheless Israel rejected it, and the United States backed them in that rejection. In January 1976 Syria, Jordan and Egypt, the so-called "confrontation states," made a proposal in the U.N. Security Council for a two-state settlement with international guarantees and territorial rights secured and so on. That was backed and even prepared by the PLO, supported by the Soviet Union and most of the world. It was vigorously opposed by Israel, which even boycotted the session, in fact, it bombed Lebanon in retaliation against the United Nations, killing about 50 people, no excuse at all, just a fit of anger, "We're going to kill anybody who gets in our way if you push this," and the United States vetoed it. There have been a series of such things ever since. The United States has always blocked them and Israel has always refused them, and that means there's no political settlement. Rather there is a state of permanent military confrontation. That's aside from what it means to the Palestinians, which is obvious and terrible; it's very bad for Israel. It's leading to their own destruction, in my view, certainly to their economic collapse and moral degeneration and probably, sooner or later, their physical destruction, because you can't have a state of military confrontation without a defeat sooner or later. It's leading the world very close to nuclear war, repeatedly. Every time we have an Arab-Israeli conflict -- and there will be more of them, as long as we maintain a military confrontation -- the Soviet Union and the United States come into confrontation. Both are involved. The Soviet Union is close by, it's not like Central America, it's a strategic region right near their border, they're involved; it's very far from us but it's a strategic region for us because of the oil nearby, primarily. So we're involved, the fleets come into confrontation, it's very close. In 1967 it came very close to nuclear war and it will again. So it's very dangerous, it's the most likely spot where a nuclear war would develop, but we are pursuing it, because we don't want a political settlement. The United States is intent on maintaining a military confrontation.

What fairytale?

One soldier is quoted saying: "The soldiers were made to understand that their lives were the most important, and that there was no way our soldiers would get killed for the sake of leaving civilians the benefit of the doubt."

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

Plenty of people.Don't you notice that this forum goes into the next page with people talking about me? You're apparentally one of them. You're too blind to admit it. I'm not the one who started going off topic. I'm just responding to what the users said. I tried to stay on topic; but I present my claims with facts. I don't have five posts of anything now. If I make a mistake on the first one and make another one, I report the previous one. I didn't start going off topic. You guys did. There are countless posts of people complaining about me simply for stating another view.

This isn't the forum. This is one thread in a very large forum. Which discusses a lot of issues.
Just to make things more quantitative, here's a post count up till now, in this thread, since you've arrived:

• Benyamin Solomon: 18
• treeofjudas (myself, including this one): 5
• Khawaga: 4
• Vlad336: 4
• petey: 3
• Farce: 2
• jef costello: 2
• jweidner: 2
• allybaba: 1
• baboon: 1
• captain soup: 1
• Devrim: 1
• Jason Cortez: 1
• Rob Ray: 1
• Steven.: 1
• Total: 48

So, a significant part of the posts are yours, and this doesn't take their length into account.

It also doesn't take into account the fact that you do not actually engage with anyone on here. For example, if you were so well-read on this "forum" (actually, this thread), you couldn't fail to notice that the opening post was:

Khawaga wrote:

Not anything new or surprising, but at lest now it's confirmed. Good for quoting to all of those with hard-ons for Hamas (coz they will usually "respect" Amnesty).

AI wrote:

Since the end of December 2008, during and after the Israeli military offensive which killed some 1,300 Palestinians, most of them civilians, Hamas forces and militias in the Gaza Strip have engaged in a campaign of abductions, deliberate and unlawful killings, torture and death threats against those they accuse of “collaborating” with Israel, as well as opponents and critics.

At least two dozen men have been shot dead by Hamas gunmen in this period. Scores of others have been shot in the legs, kneecapped or inflicted with other injuries intended to cause permanent disability, subjected to severe beatings which have caused multiple fractures and other injuries, or otherwise tortured or ill-treated.

Link.

Proving that this is a den of rabid Hamas supporters you've entered here, clearly.

One final engagement with your nonsense:

Benyamin Solomon wrote:

The fact is that Israel did NOT intentionally kill innocent civilians.

I call bullshit. One example out of plenty: Goldstone report, starting pp. 209-2 (after a plethora of corroborating reports to that effect in the Israeli media from Palestinians as well as from IDF soldiers who served in Gaza)

Goldstone Report wrote:

735. In the morning of 5 January 2009, after the shelling of Wa’el al-Samouni’s house, two of the survivors took refuge in Asaad al-Samouni’s house. From the testimonies received, the Mission is not able to state whether the Israeli soldiers then ordered the al-Samouni family members in the house to leave and walk to Gaza City, or whether it was the families who pleaded with the soldiers to be allowed to leave having heard the appalling news of what had happened to their relatives in Wa’el al-Samouni’s house. In any event, the persons assembled in Asaad al-Samouni’s house walked out of the house and down al-Samouni Street to take Salah ad-Din Street in the direction of Gaza City. They had been instructed by the soldiers to walk
directly to Gaza City without stopping or diverting from the direct route. The men were still handcuffed and the soldiers had told them that they would be shot if they attempted to remove the handcuffs.
736. On Salah ad-Din Street, just a few metres north of al-Samouni Street and in front of the
Juha family house, a single or several of the Israeli soldiers positioned on the roofs of the houses
opened fire. Iyad was struck in the leg and fell to the ground.
417. Muhammad Asaad al-Samouni, who was walking immediately behind him, moved to help him, but an Israeli soldier on a rooftop ordered him to walk on. When he saw the red point of a laser beam on his body and understood that an Israeli soldier had taken aim at him, he desisted. The Israeli soldiers also fired warning shots at Muhammad Asaad al-Samouni’s father to prevent him from assisting Iyad to get back on his feet. Iyad al-Samouni’s wife and children were prevented from helping him by further warning shots. Fawzi Arafat, who was part of another group walking from the al-Samouni neighbourhood to Gaza, told the Mission that he saw Iyad al-Samouni lying on the ground, his hands shackled with white plastic handcuffs, blood pouring from the wounds in his legs, begging for help. Fawzi Arafat stated that he yelled at an Israeli soldier “we want to evacuate the wounded man”. The soldier, however, pointed his gun at Iyad’s wife and children and ordered them to move on without him.

This is just one of "seven incidents concern[ing] the shooting of civilians while they were trying to leave their homes to walk to a safer place, waving white flags and, in some of the cases, following an injunction from the Israeli forces to do so. The facts gathered by the Mission indicate that all the attacks occurred under circumstances in which the Israeli forces were in control of the area and had previously entered into contact with or at least observed the persons they subsequently attacked, so that they must have been aware of their civilian status." (Ibid., p. 15) Mind you, the Mission was not allowed to question any Israeli soldiers, nor did it receive any kind of cooperation from the State of Israel. This is what they've managed to gather without it. And this is just from Cast Lead. Want something less recent? Just read the following, dating from the occupation of Southern Lebanon: My own war crime: personal reflections following the Goldstone Report, for example:

Noam Sheizaf wrote:

The village wasn’t that close, and the tank missed the first shot. I took out my binoculars and corrected it (it is extremely difficult for a tank to correct its own shots, mainly because of the dust it raises when it fires). Then we got the number of a new house, and again, the tank fired and I corrected it on the radio, and so on. I worked just as we learned in Bahad 1 (the IDF officer academy), using the exact procedures and code words. I kept getting praises from my C.O on the radio. To this point, this might have been the most exiting stuff I did in my service.

Then we got another number, but this time I couldn’t see the house. The Shiite village was on a hill, and the house was on its far side, hidden from us. When I reported it on the radio, my C.O just said: “well, take out a different one. How about the one in front of it?”

Only then it started to occur to me that there were no Hezbollah people in those houses. There were no terrorists’ hidden posts (all this time, of course, nobody was shooting at us from the village). These were just ordinary homes. We were simply punishing the population; it was part of the big “applying pressure” strategy. Someone has decided to replace the leaflets we were dropping with actual bombs, so our message would be clearer. But for all I knew, there could have still been people in these houses! Sure, we warned them, but what if some guy couldn’t run away north because he was sick, or too old, or he didn’t have a car, or needed to attend a sick family member, or maybe he was just too scared to run? What guarantee did I have that by “picking a different house”, I wasn’t sealing the fate of an entire family, just like Dr. Al-Ayash’s family whose house was hit by a tank in Gaza?

(emphasis mine)

Wail and Salah al-Samouni described the shelling of Wail's house, where the extended al-Samouni family had sought shelter and where more than 20 people were killed.21 They told the commission: At about 5:30 a.m. on the morning of January 5 Wail left the house with some other men to bring wood for a fire. As soon as they left the house a helicopter filed a missile at them and then a number of missiles as the house. After the house was hit the wounded proceeded toward Salah a-Din Street and were refused medical attention by the IDF soldiers. Salah claimed that the soldiers fired shots over their heads to frighten them and make them leave more quickly. They said there was no activity of armed Palestinians around the house where the family members had sought shelter. Salah al-Samouni said that "everyone is a farmer, I swear to Allah that everyone is a farmer," and rejected the possibility that they were armed or wanted.

The commission members asked: Can Wail describe the soldiers and identify them according to their voices and uniforms? How did the IDF forces destroy the agricultural land near the house? How large was the agricultural area destroyed by the IDF? Was the witness treated at the Shifa Hospital?

The commission did not ask about the identity of the dead Palestinians and about the possibility that some of them were terrorist operatives. It did not challenge their claim that there were no armed Palestinians in the area, despite reports by both Palestinian terrorist organizations and the IDF about exchanges of fire in the area. In addition, the commission did not press the witness about his claim that the soldiers did not provide medical attention, in contradiction of a statement given by a female member of the family who told the NGO B'tselem that the soldiers had given them medical aid.

An examination of freely accessible Palestinian sources shows that Wail and Salah al-Samouni hid important details from the commission which could shed light on the event. An examination of their statements and the statements of other members of the al-Samouni family to human rights organizations and published in Palestinian newspapers raises questions as to the veracity of their version of what actually happened on January 5.22

Members of the family repeatedly claimed that all the people in the house were ordinary civilians. However, at least three were affiliated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Meisa al-Samouni did not tell B'tselem that her husband, Tawfiq Rashad Hilmi al-Samouni, who was killed on January 5, was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist operative. She and the other members of the extended family, including Wail and Salah (who gave statements to the Goldstone Commission), never mentioned or hinted that other family members in the house at the time were Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives, among them Muhammad Ibrahim Hilmi al-Samouni and Walid Rahad Hilmi al-Samouni. A Palestinian Islamic Jihad flyer noted that Muhammad and Walid al-Samouni were active in fighting against the IDF in the Zeitun neighborhood.

The al-Samouni family members firmly adhere to the version that there was no Palestinian military activity near the house and that the nearest military activity was at least a mile away, and that, they claimed, was limited to firing rockets into Israeli territory, not close fighting.

However, the official Palestinian Islamic Jihad version is completely different. In a statement issued on January 5, Palestinian Islamic Jihad said that on the evening of January 4 its fighters had fired an RGP from the Zeitun neighborhood at an Israeli tank and had opened fire at IDF soldiers. At 1:20 a.m. on January 5, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad engineering unit detonated a 50-kg. bomb near an Israeli tank not far from the Al-Tawhid mosque near the house of Wail al-Samouni. At 6:30 a.m., the engineering unit detonated a bomb near an IDF infantry unit operating near the Al-Tawhid mosque in the Zeitun neighborhood.23 According to another official Palestinian Islamic Jihad statement, one of its operatives was killed in fighting nearby. His name was Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni.

The significance of the foregoing is that the four men who left the al-Samouni house in the early hours of the morning, among them Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni, did not necessarily do so for the innocent reasons given by their family. They might have gone out for a reason connected to the military activities taking place in the same area between Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist operatives and IDF forces. Palestinian Islamic Jihad reported that operatives of its military-terrorist wing, the Al-Quds Battalions, "surprised the occupation forces and attacked them from behind their lines, and there was a fierce battle in the southern part of the Zeitun neighborhood." Another report, given "exclusively to the Muslim Brotherhood website," detailed Palestinian Islamic Jihad activities in the Zeitun neighborhood on January 5: "According to eye-witnesses, the fighters of the resistance waited and barricaded themselves in secure locations, remaining in places inhabited by civilians, from which they left to carry out planned attacks against the forces of the Zionist occupier."

A Palestinian Islamic Jihad poster commemorating Muhammad Ibrahim al-Samouni is captioned: "He (Muhammad), along with the mujaheed Walid Rashad al-Samouni, blew up the tank, causing the deaths of a number of Zionists, as admitted by the enemy, on the first night of the ground invasion during the war south of the Zeitun neighborhood."24