Thank you for such an enlightened legal perspective. It reinforces what most sensible & historically informed folk already appreciate, namely that this is not a ‘two sides to every story’ situation. Hamas are by any sane measure the party at fault. Israel may not be perfect, or blameless with its historical actions, but it is a functional democracy and as such deserves worldwide support when attacked by terrorists. That members of our parliament (such as Ms Ghahraman & co) come out in support of Palestinian protestors calling for Israel to be essentially destroyed is most shameful. Who the f*** voted for that party of nut jobs? Seriously. Hamas are cowards, they are thugs and oppressors of their own people. Civilian casualties are most regrettable, but a proportionate response in this matter is the appropriate destruction of Hamas in its entirety. That is what the pro-Palestine activists should be calling for if they actually cared for the Palestinian people.
Thank you for the truth of the matter. It does serve to shine a light upon the untruths being propagated by media and government officials through out the world.
It should serve to expose not only the NZ media but also those members of NZ parliament who believe and support these untruths too.
Thankfully we still have free speech in NZ, and long may it be, for if we shut it down we would not see the hatred, bigotry and racism in society that this war is bringing to the fore. What we do need is counter arguments, and so once again, thank you for the truth of the matter.
Thank you for your comment. I find the level of relativism about the current conflict disturbing. Hamas' rhetoric is that of the Nazis and the pogroms. To lend any sort of support to them is crazy. It has always been my view that society needs to be reminded of the horrors of the Holocaust, lest we forget. It seems that the forgetting is already happening.
Quite. I'm shattered by the historical ignorance on display after Hamas atrocities of the vilest sort against peacenik kibbutzim dwellers, the festival revellers & whomever else they could find. It's incredibly anti-social for these Greens & their fellow travellers to whip up half-baked-or-worse rhetoric amongst anti-semites and ragtag fashion-slogan marchers, I can't stomach any of them.
One of the things that I found annoying was the way that the Green contingent where wearing keffiyahs in Palestinian colours. I noted that there is a photo of the Human Rights Commissioner wearing a similar raiment. When a NZ politician chants "from the river to the sea" I wonder if she really understands what she is saying. Perhaps she needs to visit a memorial in Poland to understand the enormity and consequences of anti-Semitism.
Not a goody in my opinion; more like legal sophistry than ethics based analysis. Starting from the sanctity of human life, especially civilians (as opposed to combatants) one can rightfully utterly condemn the actions of Hamas. It's important not to think that history started on 7 October though. There is plenty of history to read to understand the background to this situation. It is also not a war in the sense of one state versus another. Rather it's essentially an open air prison controlled by Israel over an ethnic group of Palestinians within Israel; and one where the power imbalance is immensely in favour of Israel and the grievances of the Palestinians go back many decades. In that context militants resorted, wrongly, to terrorist tactics to their political ends. Now Israel is also, wrongly, collectively punishing the Palestinian people of Gaza because Hamas are embedded there and Israel is seeking their destruction. It's hard to see how this can succeed given their actions are likely to radicalise literally thousands of people both inside Gaza and outside.
Self defence is being used as the justification, but really? Israel got "sprung" by a horrifying terror attack but do you seriously think the Palestinian people and their cause (right to self determination in the land that they too come from) can be purged? Have you noticed that the horrifying death toll of 1400 Israelis that occurred on 7 October hasn't really changed since then while the Palestinian death toll now exceeds around 7000. It'll exceed the Ukrainian civilian death toll (of around 9500) in the 18 or so months since 22 Feb 2022 in the next week or two! How many deaths are enough?
It should be noted that the Hamas use of rockets is largely 'symbolic' and achieves very little - that's not to say they can't kill but given the largely static Israeli death toll since 7 Oct, and the observable fact that these are little more than home made "sky rockets" with mostly "terror value" compared with the devastating power and accuracy of the Israeli missiles which is of course why we are seeing the death toll statistics we are seeing. My point is this is no war - it's a revenge motivated slaughter on a scale that is at least as inhumane as what Hamas did on 7 Oct.
To further cut off water, food, electricity for Palestinians is unconscionable. So Israel will end up killing many more Palestinians and ultimately destroy Gaza city and its subterranean network of tunnels, kill
many Hamas fighters and possibly drive the current population of Palestinians into the Sinai desert or at least even more densely populated in South Gaza. Will that settle the dispute between Palestinians and Jews and make Israeli's safe? Or is it more likely to lead to yet another round of radicalisation, terrorism and then Islamophobia?
This reader struggles to see Israel's response is proportionate or in anyone's interest, including themselves.
Thank you for such an enlightened legal perspective. It reinforces what most sensible & historically informed folk already appreciate, namely that this is not a ‘two sides to every story’ situation. Hamas are by any sane measure the party at fault. Israel may not be perfect, or blameless with its historical actions, but it is a functional democracy and as such deserves worldwide support when attacked by terrorists. That members of our parliament (such as Ms Ghahraman & co) come out in support of Palestinian protestors calling for Israel to be essentially destroyed is most shameful. Who the f*** voted for that party of nut jobs? Seriously. Hamas are cowards, they are thugs and oppressors of their own people. Civilian casualties are most regrettable, but a proportionate response in this matter is the appropriate destruction of Hamas in its entirety. That is what the pro-Palestine activists should be calling for if they actually cared for the Palestinian people.
Yes. Agree 100%
Thank you for the truth of the matter. It does serve to shine a light upon the untruths being propagated by media and government officials through out the world.
It should serve to expose not only the NZ media but also those members of NZ parliament who believe and support these untruths too.
Thankfully we still have free speech in NZ, and long may it be, for if we shut it down we would not see the hatred, bigotry and racism in society that this war is bringing to the fore. What we do need is counter arguments, and so once again, thank you for the truth of the matter.
Thank you for your comment. I find the level of relativism about the current conflict disturbing. Hamas' rhetoric is that of the Nazis and the pogroms. To lend any sort of support to them is crazy. It has always been my view that society needs to be reminded of the horrors of the Holocaust, lest we forget. It seems that the forgetting is already happening.
Quite. I'm shattered by the historical ignorance on display after Hamas atrocities of the vilest sort against peacenik kibbutzim dwellers, the festival revellers & whomever else they could find. It's incredibly anti-social for these Greens & their fellow travellers to whip up half-baked-or-worse rhetoric amongst anti-semites and ragtag fashion-slogan marchers, I can't stomach any of them.
One of the things that I found annoying was the way that the Green contingent where wearing keffiyahs in Palestinian colours. I noted that there is a photo of the Human Rights Commissioner wearing a similar raiment. When a NZ politician chants "from the river to the sea" I wonder if she really understands what she is saying. Perhaps she needs to visit a memorial in Poland to understand the enormity and consequences of anti-Semitism.
Dress-up time, it's truly bizarre and depressing.
Not a goody in my opinion; more like legal sophistry than ethics based analysis. Starting from the sanctity of human life, especially civilians (as opposed to combatants) one can rightfully utterly condemn the actions of Hamas. It's important not to think that history started on 7 October though. There is plenty of history to read to understand the background to this situation. It is also not a war in the sense of one state versus another. Rather it's essentially an open air prison controlled by Israel over an ethnic group of Palestinians within Israel; and one where the power imbalance is immensely in favour of Israel and the grievances of the Palestinians go back many decades. In that context militants resorted, wrongly, to terrorist tactics to their political ends. Now Israel is also, wrongly, collectively punishing the Palestinian people of Gaza because Hamas are embedded there and Israel is seeking their destruction. It's hard to see how this can succeed given their actions are likely to radicalise literally thousands of people both inside Gaza and outside.
Self defence is being used as the justification, but really? Israel got "sprung" by a horrifying terror attack but do you seriously think the Palestinian people and their cause (right to self determination in the land that they too come from) can be purged? Have you noticed that the horrifying death toll of 1400 Israelis that occurred on 7 October hasn't really changed since then while the Palestinian death toll now exceeds around 7000. It'll exceed the Ukrainian civilian death toll (of around 9500) in the 18 or so months since 22 Feb 2022 in the next week or two! How many deaths are enough?
It should be noted that the Hamas use of rockets is largely 'symbolic' and achieves very little - that's not to say they can't kill but given the largely static Israeli death toll since 7 Oct, and the observable fact that these are little more than home made "sky rockets" with mostly "terror value" compared with the devastating power and accuracy of the Israeli missiles which is of course why we are seeing the death toll statistics we are seeing. My point is this is no war - it's a revenge motivated slaughter on a scale that is at least as inhumane as what Hamas did on 7 Oct.
To further cut off water, food, electricity for Palestinians is unconscionable. So Israel will end up killing many more Palestinians and ultimately destroy Gaza city and its subterranean network of tunnels, kill
many Hamas fighters and possibly drive the current population of Palestinians into the Sinai desert or at least even more densely populated in South Gaza. Will that settle the dispute between Palestinians and Jews and make Israeli's safe? Or is it more likely to lead to yet another round of radicalisation, terrorism and then Islamophobia?
This reader struggles to see Israel's response is proportionate or in anyone's interest, including themselves.
Malcolm
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion as am I to disagree with it.
Hamas seem to be uncaring of the horror they have unleashed, are still holding kidnap victims, use the people whom they control as human shields.