Middle East...again...

[FZR1KG]

Eh, I'm just tired of the lies and the bullshit.
If you order your troops to shoot kids, execute civilians, then admit to it. Have some balls rather than being whinny little liars trying to hide the evil that you do willingly and consciously.
Oh, sure that may get the world upset, far less than they would once they find out you've been lying for years.

Fucking sociopaths in power.
No matter what race, religion, sex or any other criterion, they always get to run the military at some point in time and make a total cluster fuck until the rest of us wake up.
Time to wake the fuck up.

[Rommie]

Yeah, and the families of the three boys were pleading for no ground offensive to boot- they knew such a thing wouldn't bring their boys back.

I actually was starting to plan a trip to Israel and Jordan next spring- I'm not religious, but love history and there's too much amazing history there to pass up. Now I'm not so sure, just because it almost feels like going to apartheid South Africa.

[SciFi Chick]

Yeah, and the families of the three boys were pleading for no ground offensive to boot- they knew such a thing wouldn't bring their boys back.

I actually was starting to plan a trip to Israel and Jordan next spring- I'm not religious, but love history and there's too much amazing history there to pass up. Now I'm not so sure, just because it almost feels like going to apartheid South Africa.

Normally, I'm all for your adventures, but unless something changes in the current climate, I would definitely worry about you if you took this particular vacation.

[Rommie]

Yeah, and the families of the three boys were pleading for no ground offensive to boot- they knew such a thing wouldn't bring their boys back.

I actually was starting to plan a trip to Israel and Jordan next spring- I'm not religious, but love history and there's too much amazing history there to pass up. Now I'm not so sure, just because it almost feels like going to apartheid South Africa.

Normally, I'm all for your adventures, but unless something changes in the current climate, I would definitely worry about you if you took this particular vacation.

Well ok, to be clear, it was also assuming the ground offensive and such was done. I was referring more to it in the sense of how no matter how curious I am I doubt I could bring myself to visit, say, North Korea either.

[Swift]

An excellent piece, written by a liberal Israeli journalist, on CNN.com

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/08/opinion/israel-own-worst-enemy-levy/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

But the biggest problem is not the marginal extremist who cheers for the killing of Palestinian children in Gaza, or applauds every Israeli bomb that falls on a private residence. The biggest problem is the Israeli mainstream, which spoke with one voice during this war, and which had zero tolerance for any kind of dissent, or even the simplest human compassion with Palestinian sacrifice, suffering and bloodshed.

It is all about dehumanization. As long as Israelis don't perceive Palestinians as equal human beings, there will never be a real solution. Unfortunately, dehumanizing the Palestinians has become the best tool to strengthen the occupation, to ignore and deny its crimes and enable the Israelis to live in peace, without any moral dilemmas. If the Palestinians are not human beings, there is no question about human rights. This process climaxed in this war and this is the real basis for the moral blindness which has covered Israel.

If you want proof of what he says, read the comments below the article, from both sides. But the damage to your soul from reading the comments is your responsibility.

[FZR1KG]

Sadly reporting bias in the USA is also really bad.

http://fair.org/topic/israel-palestine/

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/

Not to mention that there are deliberate coverups going on.
Known cases where there were no rockets launched, then the IDF started using their forces to start executing people, which triggers the rockets as retaliation, which then the IDF claim they have to go in to stop the attacks.
The IDF even got caught with its pants down having a web site that logged the rocket attacks, near zero and none from Hamas and took it down after they started their main push into Palestine again. Pretty embarrassing that they claimed they went in because of rocket attacks but their own site showed none, it was however cached for those who are willing to look at things objectively rather than just continue to be lied to.

http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/h ... d-in-gaza/

Not to mention the death ratio's are severely lop sided.
Most compare number to number, which seems logical at first and it's still a really high figure.
Where it really shows however is when we compare equal groups from each side.
Children to children
Women to Women
Men to men
Fighters to soldiers.
Non combatants to non combatants

When we do that we see that the Palestinians lose 75-85% in non combatants.
Israel lose 5% in non combatants.
considering that the figures are so skewed in the actual death tolls that comes out to about:

200:1 on non combatants.
That's right, for every Israeli citizen that dies, 200 Palestinian civilians die.
That's got to be a sobering thought to anyone and IMHO needs to be addressed now.
Oops, my bad, that's the probability of dying, 200 times more likely in Palestine than Israel for civilians.
*edited to add*
The ratio is 100:1 since Israel's population is roughly doubly. My bad.


*edited for typos*

[Swift]

Sometimes I hate my species.

[geonuc]

I deplore the violence over there, but I really don't think the death ratios, combatant or otherwise, accurately tell the story. Those are better suited to full scale military actions.

[FZR1KG]

They might not in a vacuum but when they are linked to many cases of IDF soldiers making claims that they were ordered to kill civilians, it's time to look more closely.

[FZR1KG]

Sometimes I hate my species.

Which is why I support the idea of impartial universal condemnation and investigation of war crimes regardless of which nationality does it.

I've seen too many times the excuse, they were of X nationality so their deaths don't matter.
Or, they are of X nationality so we won't investigate them as their crimes don't matter.

Both are extreme racism in action.

[squ1d]

... and who will police it.

[FZR1KG]

... and who will police it.

Posted some dribble then decided that the best answer to this is something realistic that may have a chance of becoming reality.
So the answer to your question is: Tyrion Lannister.