Quote:
Source: BBC

According to the Israeli statements, their aim was to weaken Hamas and to disable their capacity to launch anymore rocket attacks.

It's the first objective, of weakning Hamas, that seems to have been the reason behind the excessive civilian casualties. By hitting the civilians, this would cause them to pull their support out from under Hamas, and swallow the IDF propaganda line (and Egypt's and Abbas') that Hamas is actually responsible for their deaths. But in fact the exact opposite has happened. Hamas just seems to have become stronger from this, and Fatah has just lost more credibility even amongst it's own supporters. And the resilient Palestinian people are well aware who is responsible for the civilian deaths and who is fighting to protect them. I had the opportunity last week to travel to Cairo to visit some of the wounded Ghazans in the various hospitals around Cairo. After speaking with them, it's quite clear that all of them are fervantly still behind their democratically elected leadership, and support them every step of the way in their resistance against the encroaching Zionist entity. I did not find a single person who blamed Hamas for their injuries (many of them life threatening) and their condition, ie. the loss and destruction of their houses and possessions etc. This means that the first Israeli objective simply hasn't been achieved whatsoever. In fact it's completely failed, as it's actually caused Fatah supporters to align themselves more with Hamas, and wake up to the reality that their leadership are just Zionist lackeys.

This would indicate that Israel has just callously slaughtered 1300 or so innocent Palestinians for a failed cause. They didn't manage to bomb the people into pulling their support from Hamas. In fact all they did was cause about 1000 or so more families to completely despise them even more, and to dedicate themselves to unflinching resistance, certainly not a good move on Israel's part, unless of course they perhaps wanted to cause the people to become more militant? Who knows.

As for the second objective, Hamas were still firing rockets even after Israel called a ceasefire, so that doesn't appear to have been met either.

No doubt the timing of this onslaught is linked somehow to the US presidential change of hands. Israel has announced she will have fully completed her withdraw from Gaza by Tuesday, when Obama takes office. Perhaps the assault on the Ghazans is meant to galvanise them into becoming more militant, so when Obama takes over, he will be dealing with an "Israel who voluntarily withdrew" and a Gaza which is "Boiling over with feelings of revenge".

Guess we'll need to wait and see how the results of this massacre will influence the next few month or two of developments in the region, to see what Israel's real objectives were.

How about you answer my question about how many elections Hamas supposedly participated in and lost to Fatah...

Hamas won the elections and are the democratically elected government. But as I suspected, the 'guardians of democracy' only like democratically elected leaders when you choose who they want you to. In effect, democracy is about freedom to choose your leaders, so long as it's who we want. A bit like freedom of speech isn't it? You're free to say what we want (attacking and slandering Islam) but not free to even re-examine history (jewish & armenian massacres).

Quote:


I couldnt give a rats who they choose, as long as whoever it is behiaves like sane civilised people, instead of barbarian rabble that randomly fire rockets into civilians, glorify suicide bombings and keep fighting a war with Israel that they have to lose.

So tell me Abu, are you a supporter of Hamas?

Calanen,

Quote:


Precisely, as long as whoever it is, is subservient to the U.S and their 'peace process' (by peace, we mean here arming Israel to the teeth and leaving the Palestinians subject to them in absolute squalour) and doesn't resist the foreign entity that daily encroaches on more and more of their land.

Quote:


Have already stated my answer to this question on other threads, go read them.

freediver,

Quote:


Nowhere have I stated it's a "get out of gaol free card". All I said is that it's quite hypocritical of the West to want to overthrow democratically elected governments, and instead force onto people someone they didn't elect. It shows quite clearly you couldn't care less about people electing their government, you just want them to be ruled by someone who shares your own ideology and goals.

Quote:


And in quite a few countries, don't expect to stay a free man. You face a prison term for such 'crimes'.

Quote:


Nowhere have I stated they must support it, but on the same token they must not work to remove it, as it is the choice of the people there. What it indicates is that in reality the  West couldn't given a damn about a government being elected, they only care about whose interests they will serve.

Quote:


'Yes' or 'No' might have worked too.

Quote:


Says who? Again, you are pretending that democracy is a get out of jail free card. Whether there is a moral argument for removing a government depends on what that government does. Obviously, not killing a bunch of people to get into power helps, but that doesn't give it free reign to do evil. This is BS that they don't have to support it, but they cannot work against it either. You are making it up. It is a strawman argument. You are fabricating an absurd moral stance and ascribing it to the west, then complaining that they fall short, then fabricating a motivation.
Quote:


No it doesn't mean that at all.

Quote:



Both goals were achived.
1 There are no more rocket attacks by hamas
2 Even hardened hamas supporters fail to answer